Fate or Free Will

08-31-2022

Terminator 2 was wrong. The future is set. We don't make our own fate.

I’ve always believed, at every point in my life, that I was where I needed to be, by a design. Meaning that God wanted me to be where I was, to do what I was doing, at that time. So every decision that I made, good or bad, led me to the place where I’m at now, doing what I’m supposed to be doing, by design. Every test I failed in the navy and every job I didn’t get after the navy were part of God’s plan (design) for me. If the paths I had chosen, at various points in my life, had worked out, then I wouldn’t be here, right now, living the life I’m living. That’s why they didn’t work out. I don’t believe that I have free will and the ability to change my future.

Does this mean that no one has free will and all futures are set? Based on what I stated above, I would have to say that no one has free will and we are all going along and playing a part in a grand plan. However, I can’t wrap my head around the possibility of no chance for change so I’m going to assume that there are variables, or wild cards, that come along in everyone’s life. These wild cards can be followed or ignored. If they are followed, you can journey to an alternate path in life. It’s still a destiny but it’s an alternate. Think of it as an alternate ending to a movie. There is sometimes more than one ending you can choose, (especially in horror movies) but only the ones that are part of the designed story. You can’t step outside of the pre-written endings.

Even if you think that you have full “choices” in your life, it’s still a “choose your own adventure” life. God has written several stories, with several endings. Some end well and some don’t. Every choice you make sends you down a certain path. There are a finite number of paths to take. The number, of paths that can be taken, is large, but it is still finite. I believe that the majority of the paths you choose will get you to the same ending. Life is an adventure but it’s not a totally undetermined outcome. If there are a thousand paths to take, they will lead to only a handful of endings.

So, from a physical (body) standpoint, there are limited endings to our lives and we are basically moving along in a program designed by an all-powerful being. However, the choices we make for our mental lives are almost infinite, or maybe infinite. Unless our spiritual life is pre-determined too, based on our physical life. For instance, I have physically been living in the state of Connecticut for 19 years doing working for the same company that whole time. This state and my job provided great healthcare for my special needs daughter for her 15 years of physical life on this earth. That is why I believe that I was destined to be here. The designed program put me here so that my daughter’s spirit could inhabit a physical body and be well cared for while physically on this earth.

While my daughter was physically here, she took me on a spiritual journey that really can’t be explained in words. I can simply say that I am much more aware of the universe, and everything in it, than I was before she was born. Was that spiritual journey a mental choice that I made, or was that pre-determined too? If God destined me to be here to care for my daughter, did he also plan for me to get where I am spiritually? Or was my spiritual growth a bonus side effect of caring for my daughter? That’s where I get confused on destiny verses free will. If my physical life was pre-determined, then God knew who would be in my life and when. If that’s the case, then He must have known that my daughter would take me on this spiritual journey. However, the spiritual journey could be a variable that changed the ending to the movie. No spiritual growth could be the normal ending to the movie of my life and the spiritual advancement that I made is the alternate ending. I could have ignored the dreams and visions that I had with my daughter, and stayed at the spiritual level that I lived in before her birth. Both endings were written but the choice was mine to make.

All of this is to say that I believe our physical lives are pre-determined to be lived in, either one pre-determined way, or a few different ways, that we can’t get away from. The choices we think we are making aren’t really free will but options in a game, of sorts, that will ultimately get us to the one designed ending for us. I don’t think life is a choose your own adventure with different possible endings. It could be, but that’s not my take on it, based on how my life has gone and where I am now. I’m not sure if our spiritual lives are pre-determined or not. Based on my own spiritual journey, I’m leaning towards the idea that our spiritual lives are not pre-determined and they can grow to an almost infinite level and end in an almost infinite number of ways.