A friend of mine mentioned a conversation he and other people had about fate. Stephen Hawking had a comment about people who believe in pre-determination will still look both ways before crossing the street. funny i think.
but this got me thinking about god giving us free will. we see innocent people being bombed, murdered, raped and beaten into cripples. children who have not known life outside of cancer. and many ask why god would allow it. the answer a lot of people say is “its all god’s plan”
so my question is, doesnt “its all god’s plan” contradict the concept of free will? like, i get robbed and shot the robber has free will, i have free will, but the reason this happend “its all god’s plan”.
I don’t think you’re supposed to wrap your head around it I don’t think that’s possible and let’s just be clear on this there are things that happen in this world that do not make sense there’s always an explanation for what happens but not a reason. I cannot buy the idea personally that it’s just all the part of God’s plan as if God plans out or not plans out but allows of things to happen in order to fulfill a big master plan I have a problem with that. what I think has happened is that theologians and Christians have grappled with these things that are beyond our comprehension and in doing so in order to provide some sort of something they make statements that don’t make any sense. And it’s not necessarily their fault if they’re not trying to serve their ego or try to follow some kind of theological pattern it’s because these things really are incomprehensible. Case in point my neighbor had a four-year-old son who died of leukemia many years ago now we could sit here and reason that God wanted the little angel but that is an insult to our intelligence. I hope I never experienced that kind of pain. But a closer example would be my neighbor a friend of mine she was attacked in her own home many years ago knocked out tied up and she was set on fire. Thank God the smoke detector woke her up she got up put the fire out got up and walked through the field to her husband’s store and it’s my understanding she collapsed there she survived the man was caught he went to prison my great uncle was actually on the jury,. Here’s my point. The woman was a devout Christian have been serving God all of her life she was an organist at the local church she would never have physically harmed anyone and yet this person did this to her. Do I believe that was part of the master plan no. Do I believe the Holocaust was in part of a master plan. No. Do I believe that people who get murdered totally innocent is a part of God’s plan no. But what is the explanation I do not know I do not think it was fate I do not think it was God’s plan and most of these cases it was free will decisions and another cases it was mental illness or drugs and alcohol so yeah. Free Will exist and I’m not saying that certain things are not destined to happen by God but not a lot of these things and I want to just say I simply don’t know
God gave us physical difficulties as well as a difficult environment. This was to force is to overcome our selfishness and care for each other. This was not evil, but hardships. All of the real evil comes from ourselves and is encouraged by Satan and his world system.
To say God didn’t plan something is to say God isn’t all powerful.
Now yes many horrible things happen in the world but we must realize that our perspective on reality is very narrow. This is just the temporal plane, all things existed spiritually before they existed here.
1 Peter 2:20 says “For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.”
In the beginning of the book of Job we see how the Devil interacts with God. We see that the Devil is given the opportunity to afflict the righteous, essentially to test their faith, thinking surely they will curse God once they suffer this way. Now a believer who overcomes these trials will have a much closer seat to God in heaven for sure.
Now the whole “friend’s kid got cancer their whole life dies young thing” It is important to note that you don’t see anything even close to the real picture, what if in leading a normal healthy life that kid actually ends up falling into irredeemable condemnation? Or suffers some horrible act at the hands of another? We can never truly know if the cancer is actually a mercy, or if dying young is a mercy. What we do know for sure about children is that the kingdom of heaven is theirs, dying in that young innocent state 100% lands them a spot in heaven, considering our short probation here on earth compared to the eternal nature of heaven that’s actually the best you can ask for.
At the end of the day this life is just a prelude to whether or not we can be in the eternal presence of God, so i find that realization sums up most things. Evil is very hateful and jealous, so those whom are more likely to actually get into heaven will be attacked more, being as the devil wouldn’t waste his time on someone who was already going straight to hell.
May your peace and your blessings be multiplied,
Sincerely,
G