Imagine you have just being created by God and started your happy life with your mate in a beautiful garden. Nobody to disturb you and you think you are happy. You are given everything under a condition: you SHOULD NOT eat from the “tree of knowledge of goodness and evil”. Why not? Nobody knows, maybe God did not want human to know the truth of good and evil. Well, if I was the first human created by God and I was just thrown to such a garden, I’d have tried some of that fruits, not because it looked good or someone tempted me, maybe to satisfy my curiosity or find out why it is forbidden. My point here is human was not created with the power to control his life. “Choosing” is meaningful when there is more than one way to go. Do you think Adam and Eve had a choice to eat or not to eat from that tree? Or they were created to follow a predetermined path? What would have happened if they had not eaten from that tree and please do not tell me that they would have lived happily after forever? No, crystal clear: I were not leaning on this couch and burning in the hell of my thoughts. To convince you that Adam had to choose the way he did, listen how Qur'an tells the story (chapter 2, verse 30): "And recall when your Lord said to the Angels, I am about to place a vice-generate in the Earth, they said, "will You place such who will spread disorder and shed blood'?". It is obvious from this quote that they knew human will come to the Earth and do such things.
Anyway, I think predestination is a concept that exists as a big picture of human life. We are just like a kid that his dad takes him to a toy store to buy his dream bike. The kid has spent days and nights thinking about which bike he likes not knowing that dad has already chosen the bike because dad thinks this is a good bike for his kid. Selected bike is presented to the poor kid with millions of reasons why this is the best bike in the world. Who cares about kid's dream! He is just given the chance to pick the color. How a proud kid! And I really feel bad for those kids who cannot even enjoy their favorite color.
Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, page 161: “…Our final destination, heaven or hell, is decided by God not only before we get there, but before we are born. Our ultimate destiny is in the hands of God”.
Qur'an, chapter 13, verse 27, : "Allah sends astray whomever he will".
You see this idea in most of religions along with human freedom! Human can freely chooses between good and bad, but the free will must be reconciled with God's omniscience and goodness in allowing man to choose badly. Basically, this means that human could not even choose badly if God did not want to. On the other hand, you hear a lot that "you would not be able to if God did not want to". Thank you for generous freedom, human freely chooses the way God wants to.
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I suppose you have assumed that the story of Adam and Ave is true. What if this story is a secret message or what if it is only a story? Even by ignoring the being’s conditions of the first human, I believe we are not rally free. Do we decide when to be born? Do we decide when to die? Do we decide about our health, race, family, and so on? In fact, NOT!
ReplyDeleteWhat if everything occurs haphazardly? Then, neither predestination nor freedom makes any sense. Everything is a random phenomenon.
It does not matter if this story is true or not. What is importnat is regardless of such stories, as you mentioned human does not have free will in most important events of his life, like birth and death. I completely have accepted this fact, but my problem is why religions are trying to cover this with freedom? Do they think human is stupid or what? it reminds me that poor kid again whose dad tries to make him proud, happy, and THANKFUL for having the chance to choose the color!
ReplyDeleteWe don’t know where we are from. We don’t where we are going to. We just know that we are here now. At least let’s be SHANGOL by believing that we have freedom to live our life ! ? !
ReplyDeleteGood point. It is just the beginning. If you get deep into any religion you will find more of these things which don't make any sense by logic or mind.
ReplyDeleteIf we think the religon is made by human beings you will find it easy to reject some of the comments that don't make sense and accept the one that is more acceptable by wisdom (logic).
It depends to the man himself to be the creator of his own path or be a chooser of a path.