The Issue of Fate

I have seen something else under the sun:  The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.  Ecclesiastes 9: 11.

It’s the most misconstrued teaching in the Bible this issue of God’s will.  I’ve heard many people say some pretty outlandish things about God’s plan for their lives as if nothing happens by chance.  I’ve even heard people who think that every result of every choice and every action is completely God directed.  I think it comes from some sort of morphed Calvinism, to be blunt, for they think that predestination means that mankind doesn’t have any freedom.

…Which is a dichotomy to my mind.  How can one be free to choose right or wrong but be completely dictated to about the choice?  How can the outcomes be so planned that nothing happens naturally or consequentially.  Does God give people liver disease if they drink too much?  Do people with bad kidneys just happen to be more evil than others?  What about leprosy?  Blindness?

How can I even have the presence of mind to ask these questions if I’m simply a robot/puppet mouthing words dictated to me?

Some things in life might be planned but not everything.  The context in which we say something must be taken into consideration or the meaning of it might get misconstrued.  This happens with God’s will constantly.

What changes when we place our lives in God’s hands?   Do we stop thinking, considering, weighing options and making choices?  Does the drunk driver who will hit us tomorrow and break our back suddenly go sober?

“May be” is the answer to all of them, but not out of God’s direct interference if our text above is to be believed.

From what Solomon says here, God seems to have designed an improvisational universe, one which can be turned, changed, arranged and adjusted.  The brightest people don’t always get the big payoff, the sweetest people don’t get the accolades, the strongest or fastest people don’t win the prize at the end of the game, but time and chance happen to us all.  This means that another person’s choice or other people’s choices can and will affect mine.

I might choose to go to the market because I just happen to want ice cream, but since a bunch of people had that idea before me, there might not be any of the kind I like left.  This isn’t God telling me to go on a diet but simply time and chance.

Yet some would take it this way, if they happen to be gaining weight or over weight.  God doesn’t need to do these kinds of “signs” to tell us truth, all we have to do is look in the mirror, try to see our shoes or to run a block and our heart and lungs will tell us we’re out of shape.  If God wanted only to use only miracles to let us know truth, we wouldn’t have 66 books telling us to choose Him and turn around, now would we.  There is a choice offered, which shows us that we have something to do with our “fate”.

Understanding Predestination

I spoke with one young preacher who took Romans 9 to mean that we are puppets on a string and God is the puppet master.  When I presented Solomon’s claim to him, he replied,  “O, but Ecclesiastes isn’t a theological book.  It’s not about doctrine.”  My reaction was to stare at him dumbfounded and exclaim,  “So you’re saying that it doesn’t have anything to say about truth?”  NO! it’s Scripture!  He said back but it isn’t doctrinal.

I just couldn’t believe a guy who had spent 45 minutes telling kids to choose God or go to hell and how the Bible was the source of truth was saying such opposite things.  No wonder outsiders are confused!

Chapter 9 of Romans talks about two arrival points for the people who choose for or against God, their end is predestined.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Those who rebel against God will die; those who repent and accept Him as Lord of all will live.  The gate for life and death are the only “predestined” things about our choices.  Anything more or less would be abdicating our responsibility, for we wouldn’t own our choice anymore than the outcome.

A Case for Liquid Fate

Isaiah 1: 18, 19: “Come now, let us reason together,”  says the LORD.  “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.  If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.”  For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Ezekiel 33: 11: “Say to them,  ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.  Turn!  Turn from your evil ways!  Why will you die, O house of Israel?’ “

Sounds like a choice is being offered in both of these passages, huh?

Look, the Bible is either true or it isn’t, there’s no halfway mark here.  If it isn’t accurate in its description of God, then it’s a bogus message and might contain truth but the basic teaching isn’t.  So then what we have would be a great idea without any substance.

If it’s true, then Ecclesiastes has several important somethings to tell us and one of those things is that God created time and chance.  The race doesn’t go to the swift because various factors may come together to prevent it.  This isn’t God stepping in to humble someone it’s just time and chance.  God can and will use this to show Himself to that person but it isn’t for that purpose that it happened.

Now how is God in control then?

He’s the programmer, the source of all the options, therefore the source of all the outcomes.  It’s kind of like a math equation:

 If n=b and b=c, then n=c, so if b+b=a, then b+c=a, n+b=a and n+c=a. 

What we have is a mathamtical genius on our hands.  Actually, it goes beyond genius to the source of intelligence, which points to God being the one who makes all the equations, figured out and made all the puzzles and creates the rules.

So of course He knows how things are going to work.  This doesn’t subtract time and chance for us.  Random numbers added together might have a predictable outcome, but they are still chosen at random.  So with situations.  Fate is just a word we use to try to grasp what just happened.  What really happens in most cases is that the numbers added up to this particular sum–and that’s fate.

We can predict the outcome of someone hitting a wall at 90 mph, right?  Car going 90 mph hits brick wall, equals person either dead or very seriously injured.  It’s not complicated, it’s just wisdom at work with experience and knowledge.

Yet we try to forget or ignore the various numbers in our equations.  Bad habits add up to bad outcomes.  Bad company corrupts good morals; hanging out with angry people will rub off on us; hanging out with the wise brings wisdom.  What we put in our equation will dictate the sum.

Yet that truth is only half of it, for we must add weather conditions, earth movement, natural blessing or disasters and a host of other “numbers” which must be calculated for the outcome.  A sunny day may get lightning if the atmosphere has enough static.  It’s rare, of course, but it happens under the right conditions.

If we are puppets on a string, then whether I witness to the world or don’t isn’t up to me but is dictated by the puppet master.  Choosing then become competely arbitrary and no one has any freedom of thought, action or choice, so the choice for or against Jesus as Savior is moot and emptied of any meaning as far as our ability to choose is concerned. Influence and experience are completely emptied of their effectiveness or value at this point.

So my sum of this topic is that we can and must plan as best we can and leave the outcome to God.  Not so He will bring us what we want but so that we don’t worry one way or the other.

Now I will seemingly throw out all I said in order to say:  I believe God can and will step into our lives to change the outcomes at times when we ask, while I still believe in time and chance.

Tags: fate, God's purpose, God's will, losers, planning, purpose, time and chance, winners