What Will Be Will Be...Or Will It? (Is The Future Pre-ordained?)

Member Name: kenjohn

Product:	Is The Future Pre-ordained?
Date:	21/12/08 (382 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Makes you think

Disadvantages: Makes you think, and sometimes gives you a headache!

I actually suggested this topic for inclusion at "Speaker's Corner" as it's something I've thought about a lot over the years, and especially since I became a Christian back in the early 1980's.

When I was growing up I had a favourite aunt (God rest her soul) who always used the old Scot's expression "If it be fir yi it'll no pass yi by". A literal translation (for all you Sassenachs out there) is that if something is meant to happen in your life then there's no escaping it, good or bad, no matter what course of action you might take. In other words, she believed that our lives were all laid out for us before we even exited our mother's wombs, and that there was no point in worrying about anything as we really had no say in what was going on in our lives, and that God had His plan for us that we simply had to accept.

If I'm totally truthful then I suppose I actually subscribe to this theory, at least in part if not quite wholeheartedly. I now have a favourite expression of my own which is something along the lines of "You have to play the hand you are dealt". I think that the seeds of this attitude were probably reinforced in me when I began to attend Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1970's, but were probably there already as a legacy of the largely Calvanist upbringing I received in Scotland. (I'm now a Catholic, by the way)

One of the AA slogans is "Let Go And Let God". Of course, they mean it in relation to an alcoholic stopping drinking (and *STAYING* stopped) by handing control of their destiny over to God (or as they prefer to call it in AA the "Higher Power") and believing that He can do what they could never manage on their own; stop killing themselves with alcohol. Certainly that is true in my own case, as it was only when I eventually became a Christian about five years into my sobriety and asked God for His help in overcoming my alcoholism that I finally stopped battling my illness, and allowed God to totally remove the compulsion I had had all my adult life to consume as much alcohol as I could until I eventually passed out. It's now nearly 30 years since I took my last drink of alcohol, and 25 years since I was relieved of the compulsion to drink.

I have a cousin at home in Scotland who I am very close to (he's more like a brother really) who like me is a Christian, but unlike me isn't a Catholic and follows the traditions of the Free Church of Scotland. (The "Wee Frees") We often have fairly lengthy philosophical discussions about our respective Christian faiths and the similarities and differences between them, and one subject that *ALWAYS* seems to come up is this question of pre-destination. The "Wee Frees" believe completely in pre-destination. (If I've got that wrong incidentally, then I look forward to a discussion of the same in the comments box of this review)

My cousin states that every step of our lives is laid out in advance, and that a person's eventual salvation (or damnation!) is already known to God. I on the other hand throw back at him the argument that God gave us free will and that we can thus alter the course our lives might take by the choices that we make. He counters this argument by stating that God already *KNOWS* the choices we are going to make even before we make them, so in that sense whatever actions we might take and their consequences are *STILL* pre-ordained.

OK. You're probably beginning to get the message. This whole pre-ordination question is something that is very difficult to actually get a handle on and rife with conflicting arguments, both sides of which have merit.

So what conclusions have I actually come to about pre-destination? My own belief is that while I totally believe that God influences our lives, I don't fully accept that absolutely everything we do and every decision we make is already written down in "the book of life", and that God gave us free will for a reason. I believe that we all have "alternative" futures. When we encounter problems and situations in our lives it's then that the "free will" factor comes fully into play, and that the decisions we make then change the direction of our lives and ultimately our souls. (If you are a Christian like I am)

Let's take an example in my own life. Back in 1979 I (finally) came to the decision to stop drinking. For five long years I fought a constant battle against the bottle and the compulsion to drink. At that time I had no belief in God, and simply used Alcoholics Anonymous and my new found sober friends in AA as my "higher power" to help keep me dry and off the booze. For me this is where the question of choice comes into play. I actually *CHOSE* to stop drinking instead of my alternative choice which was to continue on my merry way with old John Barleycorn. Those who believe totally in pre-destination would, of course, argue that my decision to stop drinking was already written into my personal life story. My own belief is that at that particular point of my life I actually had two very different and distinct life stories. If instead of stopping drinking at that point I had chosen the alternative and continued to drink then the chances are very high (nay, almost certain!) that my life would now be over, as most drinking alcoholics lives come to some sort of untimely end. I certainly would never have married, my darling daughter would never have been born and most likely I would never have known the joy of parenthood.

The point I am really making is that *EITHER* of the two alternative life stories are valid, and that it was *MY* choice which one I chose to follow. To me this is the exercise of free will. I believe that at certain points in all our lives we face momentous choices when the decisions we make shape and mould our futures going forward. Should we marry or remain single? Should we stay in our own country of birth or emigrate and integrate into a new lifestyle and community? Should we follow this particular career path or another?

These choices are some of the "biggies" that most of us face at some point or other in our lives, but we exercise our free will every single day of our lives; in fact, we exercise our free will almost every *MINUTE* of our lives in one way or another. Should I take my coffee break now, in ten minutes time, or not at all? Should I use the car to go to work today or take the bus or train? Maybe if we took the car our destiny for that day would be to be involved in a fatal car accident. Or if we chose the train then we would be involved in a fatal derailment!
Arrrgghhh...It's so frustrating trying to work it all out that it's almost enough to drive you to drink. (Only joking folks, at least in my own case!)

Then God comes into the equation; at least He does for me as I am a practicing Christian with a firm belief in the Lord and in the fact that I have an immortal soul that will live on forever after my physical death. I firmly believe that there are no coincidences in life, and that everything that happens to me, and that has happened to me in the past, is for a reason and part of God's greater plan for my life. Oh yes folks. I *DO* believe in a God that takes a personal interest in each and every one of us, in the same way as a parent is protective of their children and interested and concerned in helping them make the right choices in life. But really all a caring parent can do is give help and advice to their kids and then hope and pray that they make the right decisions. At the end of the day the choice of what they do with their lives is down to each individual person.

I believe that God works in my own life in exactly the same way as a loving father. The difference in my life today as distinct from when I was an atheist/agnostic is that now when I have a particularly hard decision to make in my life I can ask my loving Father in prayer for His help, assistance and guidance in making the right choice. (He always answers my prayers by the way, even if sometimes He takes his time about it, and even if some of the time the answer is "no" or "not yet") I no longer ask the question "why me" when something bad happens in my life. Rather I accept the fact that it is written in God's plan for my life and I try to act and take decisions on the problem in the way I think will most likely fulfil the way in which my heavenly Father would want me to act. I also firmly believe that God, as my heavenly Father, will never give me more problems or heartbreak in my life than I am able to bear, in the same way as a good parent will never overburden their child.

But I come back to the simple fact that at the end of the day the decisions I take are wholly my own, and that God doesn't run my life to the extent that He actually knows the decision I am going to make even before I make it. I believe that I am given choices and that God allows me to exercise my free will in what decision I make, and only then is my future life path determined based upon whatever decision I take.

OK. I've rambled on enough. This review has been a wee bit of an indulgence on my part, as I've been dying for ages to actually articulate some of the arguments that have been floating around in my head for years, and to get other people's feedback on what they think about the question of pre-destination. So come on folks, the comment box is open and I'm eager to hear your views.

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© KenJ December 2008

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Summary: To be or not to be...that is the question.