"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

free will vs god's plan
February 17, 2005 - 5:36 pm

i was just sitting on a couch looking out a window of what passes for the student union here. i'm killing time until my 7pm class.

i could sort of see images of folks walking past me, but i was really getting set to fall into that daydream like state and just let my mind wander and ponder things... when i happen to notice two girls behind me.

i didn't notice them because they were cute or anything like that.. it was because they were standing behind me talking. i refocused my eyes on thier blurry image.. and one gestured towards me. i frowned.

i knew i didn't know either of them and i sensed i was about to be disturbed.

sure enough, i watched the image of one come closer to me and ask in a timid voice, "excuse me, but i'm, er we, are doing a survey.."

i decided this wouldn't be so bad.. so i said sure.

she came around the couch and sat next time. it occured to me i should ask what's the survey for, but didn't. she only had a little sheet of paper with about seven questions on it, so i figured what's it matter? i choose to be nice.

first question: what's your major?

i felt better about my choice.. thinking the survey was for a class or perhaps about the use of student union.

second question: what do you think getting your degree will help you do?

again, standard..

third question: do you think your degree will help you with your purpose in life?

a big ass red flag goes up in my head. what's this purpose shit? i of course say no. since i feel no purpose in life.. how could my degree help me achieve it?

she presses me a bit.. and i say, well there's so many possibilities in life, it just doesn't make sense that there's one and only one "best" thing for me to do.

she frowns a bit at this and i know exactly where things are headed.

fourth question: do you believe that god has a purpose for you?

the red flag is now a blaze and fireworks are going off. i should have asked her the purpose of the survey.. actaully, no.. she should have said it up front. doesn't matter.

i say no.

she takes a deep breath and starts in about how she's a part of some organization who does believe in god and that god gives each person a purpose...

i have two choices. the first is to enter into a debate with her about the nature of things.. and from her timidness, i'm pretty sure i could steamroll over her. that sounds bad.. but i don't mean it in a bad way. she's clearly nervious.. afterall approaching strangers can be intimidating. i'm not nervious. i'm fairly sure i can toss out some things she's never thought about and at the least confuse her. my other choice is to simply cut things short and let her go on her way.

i cut her off, not rudely, but i do interrupt her. i say, if this is really a religious survey, i'm not interested. i've choosen again to be nice.

if i'd have thought she'd be up for decent debate on the following, i'd have pushed to see what would come of it. with her though, i really felt it would come off with me being a dick.

the issue i refer to is.. the apparent confusion when it comes to god - at least from the christian point of view.

two things are juxtaposed.. and unclear to me. the first is that god has given us free will -- some say it is the greatest gift we were/are given. with free will, we can choose to do whatever we want. we can be good. we can be bad. we can be nice. we can be mean.

other critters in the animal world don't get that choice. at least not in the same ways. they are creatures who react to the world at large. we have the option to be proactive. a mouse smells cheese and will try to eat it from the trap.. hopefully a human decides hunger isn't worth dying over and moves on to easier food.

the second issue is the idea that god has a plan, a purpose for everyone. good things happen and bad things happen for a reason.

this is mostly discussed when something bad happens.. a person dies young and people say, it's all part of gods plan. it's meant as a comfort.. that things we don't understand, that things that make no sense happen.. and happen for a reason. take solace in the knowledge you child dieing young is part of a larger plan you can't hope to understand.. trust in god that in the end it all make sense.

the purpose idea also gets into that each of us has something we are meant to do. each of us is born with some sort of "task" or "goal" assigned by god. some might say their calling is to be a priest or a social worker.. or an athelete. it's rather like identifing what you're natural skills and abilities are best used and doing that -- with a healthy dose of enjoyment mixed in.

herein lies.. the confusion. if god does indeed grant us all free will and wants us to exercise it, why would god also have this master plan (which, being gods plan, we can not circumvent)? if god gives everyone a purpose in life.. a calling.. a whatever, then that goes against free will.

if i'm "called" to do X, then i'm not freely choosing am i?

if i'm influenced by things to do something, i'm not freely choosing.

i'm much more an actor in a play. romeo "freely" falls in love with juliet and they both risk their lives (and in the end lose them) for each other.. acting against advice of many folks.. and of their own free will. however, if they were truely star crossed lovers, they had no choice.. their love and misery was part of god's plan and they were merely doing their part.

the subtle bit is this:

you may think you're acting freely, but how can you REALLY know you are?

think about it. imagine romeo and juilet were real people and shakespeare would be god (as he wrote the play). if you stopped romeo and asked him if he was choosing all on his own to go after juliet, he'd say yes. he loves her and his actions are his own.

from his point of view, he's making everychoice all on his own. he can't know someone's already written the lines he will say.. written out the actions he will do.. and that his fate is sealed. he's merely an actor playing his part.

i wonder if i'm being clear about this at all. i've just thought up the romeo and juliet metaphor.. and i think it works decently well.

my point is.. you can not have both: you can not the freedom to do what you will and also think that god has a masterplan by which the world turns.

well, i suppose you could dance around the issue and say that major things like birth and death are "planned" and all the rest is up to us.. but i find that cheap and unsatisfying.. though i can't argue it's not possible.

personally, as scary as the idea is.. i'm a free will kinda guy.

why is it scary? it means all my fuckups are soley my own.

god's plan means whatever i choose, i'm just acting out life.. so my mistakes aren't really my fault and i take solace that i had no other choice. of course, so to are my victories. how can i celebrate what i was destined to have? in philosphical terms.. god's plan is determinism.

thoughts? agree? disagree? why?