Can human will overcome predestined futures?

Question

This one raises an interesting question on whether human will is strong enogh to overcome predestined events. I believe human's are predestined, but i also believe that human will is capable of breaking free from a predsetined future..

I believe will is the only thing capable of existing outside the universe which was created by God. it's almost the opposite of shopenhauer philosophy.

Answer 1

Yes, human will is stronger than his destiny. In India, there are so many episodes told and repeated over millenia of years to encourage people to follow the path of Truth and Love, by which alone, the will power can be made strong enough to change ones destiny. The story of Savitri in the Mahabharata epic of 3200 B.C. is an example along with so many others.

Answer 2

I am less predestinationish than I am free willy. No wait, that implies a whale overcoming a predestined fish tank. I don't think that's what I really meant.

But on the subject of whales and free will, let's consider Jonah. If our future is predestined, it implies that it was predestined by someone/thing. If that someone/thing is God, than how is it possible for finite human will to overcome infinite omnipotent God will? Jonah sure couldn't, even though he tried his best.

But if God allowed us to gain free will (by not preventing us from eating from the fruit of knowledge of good and evil), then how can anything involving human will be predestined?

Really, I guess I would need to know if your belief in predestination is based on a belief in an omnipotent being, or if you believe predestination is a result of the nature of the physical universe ( and if we could only calculate all the positions of all particles in the universe as well as their velocities and directions, we'd know the predestined future of the entire universe).

Answer 3

If the will is able to overcome a pre determined destiny then the destiny can't be truly pre determined, can it?
Also, a true belief in predestination seems to me to mean that we're no more than wind up toys. To me, life without choice would eliminate the very nature of life. Rocks may be predetermined but the thing that is different about life is it's ability to respond to it's environment. It may be possible to have some of both, where the basic aspects of your life might be determined somehow, but within that you also have choice.

Answer 4

Some human have predestined life. Some does not. Some people are born for specific purpose (ie. prophet, messenger). But most of the time we create our own future. For example, global warming, ozone destruction, El nino, La nina...they are happening and they will happen because of what we are doing right now!
At the end of the day, only God knows what will happen tomorrow.

Answer 5

Maybe he wanted something to entertain himself with...You know, kinda like an entity looking down on us and laughing at our plight. Nowhere in the bible does it mention that God doesn't have a sense of humor. Besides, God created humans last, so how do those bible thumpers know he created everything else for human pleasure? They don't....So obviously their thumping abilities need to be relooked over just a little bit.

Answer 6

Your question presumes that the future is predestined. On what do you base this conclusion?

Answer 7

No they can't, if they think they have, then it is obviously predestined that they overcame it and that they think they overcame it.

Everything is predestined from the moment of the big bang.

Answer 8

God gave us free-will, yet he knows ahead of time our life. This does not mean that our lives are "controlled", in our timeframe, we have free will, and in God's timeframe, he knows are choices, etc. They are two mutually exclusive things that can co-exist>