Destiny or Free Will
Among all the questions that occupied thinkers’ minds, from scientists, philosophers, theologians, and many people like you and me, there is one question that stands out because of the endless debates that took place on trying to answer it, without any conclusive result. This question is: “do we act out of our free will, or do we do the things that were pre-determined and written for us as part of our destiny?”
Here I am about to delve into a humble attempt to shed some light on this impossible question and maybe bring a more convincing answer to it. I ask you, as you read through these lines, to park away all your previous beliefs and certainties about this topic; this will facilitate greatly your acceptance of some of my ideas and will give you a better understanding of my explanation. Some of what you will read might be opposite to your current beliefs, so, for the length of this article, consider it to be acceptable and flow with my demonstration. Also, be gentle in your judgment, surely I don’t have the ultimate truth, but I would like to demonstrate to you, logically and strongly, my version of the truth.
Let us look at few examples of real life situations or events, where this question of destiny vs. free will is relevant to us:
On his way back from work, Jack was struck by a lightening and was killed on the spot.
Jennifer was diagnosed with bone cancer, 8 months later she died in excruciating pain.
Daniel was sitting in the living room, all of the sudden he stood up and went to the kitchen, were he felt safer because of the fortifications placed there to protect it from shells and shrapnel. Few seconds after he entered the kitchen, a rocket fell near the house, and a shrapnel entered from the small kitchen window and killed Daniel. All other members of the family sitting in the living room were unharmed.
Mary is going to USA next year to finish her Master Degree in Computer Science. If she gets the visa!
Next summer, James will get married to Jamie, if nothing unplanned happened and disturbed the way they feel about each other.
John was driving fast to present to a group of investors, his business idea, after 13 months of strenuous research. He got himself into an accident, which delayed him by 2 hours for his appointment. Once he got there, he was informed that, because he didn’t show up on time, another business idea, similar to his, was presented by his competitor Peter and was selected instead of his. Peter became one of the wealthiest people in his country due to the success of his company founded on this business idea, and John after a long period of unemployment, finally accepted a job at Peter’s firm.
The first 3 examples express for most people the idea of a destined end, from which there was no escape. The lightening, the cancer and the shrapnel, are all the instruments of a pre-written destiny that had to be fulfilled!
The last 3 examples describe three situations where someone planned to achieve a certain goal, immigrating, getting married, creating a business, but there remained a dose of doubt on the positive outcome of these plans, just in case all conditions for that purpose are not united. If the goal is not achieved, in these 3 examples, people would comment and say: “Mary was not very lucky in obtaining her visa. James was not really a good fit for Jamie anyhow, better now than later. Had John paid a bit more attention, and driven a bit more safely, he would have been in Peter’s position today!”
It seems from these simple examples, that anything outside of the purposeful design of a human is attributed to destiny, and in the opposite scenario, luck becomes the interfering or influencing factor, and not the determining one like fate or destiny are!
For the believers in fate and a pre-written destiny by some all-knowing God, creator of all things, this is clearly a ridiculous thinking, as if humans’ design and plans are not emanating from the same source, as the rest of the uncontrolled events, such as lightening, sickness, shrapnel, and the likes.
At any rate, the obvious conclusion about the way we live our reality is that “most people believe that we are driven by our destiny in our powerlessness and given choices by our luck in our plans and decisions.” But in reality, no one really knows what is driving whom, or who is driving what!
In the absence of any conclusive evidence on the existence of a destiny, which defines our lives and decides on the outcome of our actions since we are born until the day of our death, which is also defined by this same fate, let us make the initial assumption that we are all following a pre-defined destiny. Then, let us try to demonstrate that this assumption will lead us to an absurd outcome. By doing that, as we learned in mathematics, we simply demonstrate that the initial assumption is false and its opposite is true, and we can then conclude that there is no such thing as a pre-written destiny!
If the hypothesis (assumption) is that destiny exists, then the prophets throughout history, the Bible and the Koran, are, by inception, the most qualified readers of the written destiny of humanity and they came to give us a glimpse of what lies ahead of us, as wanted by God, so we can prepare ourselves to better interact with what is coming and manage our lives within God’s design. Therefore, the best available measure of how much we are in a pre-written path would be the accuracy of all prophecies throughout the last 50 centuries or so!
Without boring you with the thousands of prophecies that were proclaimed throughout the history of humankind, based on a very lenient definition of what constitutes success for any prophecy, and with a very indulgent judgement of the events that followed these prophecies, I can confidently say that in the most optimistic case, 1 out of 2 prophecies materialized into some concrete event on this earth, which means that 1 out 2 didn’t lead to anything. As we all know, 50% of success is the same rate of success as flipping a coin on any event in our lives. So the destiny, as read and communicated to us by its most proficient readers, the prophets, is no more and no less accurate, in determining the outcomes of our lives, than luck, coincidence or chance. As a consequence of this simple demonstration, we can say that our original hypothesis of pre-destination was wrong, therefore nothing is pre-written from end to end and all is tied to a set of random circumstances, (un) lucky coincidences and our dealing with these when they occur.
Three very enlightening quotes express beautifully the depth of my thoughts. The first two are from Jacques Folch-Ribas (French Canadian writer and literary critic) and the third is from Ambrose Bierce (North American journalist):
“Destiny is an invention after the fact” Jacques Folch-Ribas
“Destiny puts a lot of luck in its game” Jacques Folch-Ribas
“Destiny, a tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure” Ambrose Bierce
As I conclude my humble and short demonstration of one of the most difficult questions of life, I will leave you with a thought to ponder upon:
“Look back, objectively, rigorously, and with brutal honesty, on your life, and ask yourself, how many times luck brought you an element of a solution to a problem you were facing and you didn’t see it or act upon it, for many different reasons, not the least of them being your lack of attention to the subtle signals that you received and simply ignored. How many times when the problem persisted or got worse, you ended up blaming your destiny for your bad situation, forgetting the chances that came your way, or maybe remembering them, but not having the courage to blame yourself for your failures?”