Is Fate the same as Destiny (or vise-versa), OR do we live freely, on our own, given free-will by our creator

Question

Is each and every one of us born into this world now,at this moment in time pre-determined, somehow?

Answer 1

The Wonderful Gift of Free Will

Do you appreciate having the freedom to choose what you will do and say, what you will eat and wear, what kind of work you will do, and where and how you will live? Or would you want someone to dictate your every word and action every moment of your life?

No normal person wants his life taken out of his control so completely. Why not? Because of the way God made us. The Bible tells us that God created man in his ‘image and likeness,’ and one of the faculties God himself has is freedom of choice. (Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 7:6) When he created humans, he gave them that same wonderful faculty—the gift of free will. That is one reason why we find it frustrating to be enslaved by oppressive rulers.

So the desire for freedom is no accident, for God is a God of freedom. The Bible says: “Where the spirit of God is, there is freedom.” (2 Corinthians 3:17) Hence, God gave us free will as part of our very makeup. Since he knew the way our minds and emotions would work, he knew that we would be happiest with free will.

To go with the gift of free will, God gave us the ability to think, weigh matters, make decisions, and know right from wrong. (Hebrews 5:14) Thus, free will was to be based on intelligent choice. We were not made like mindless robots having no will of their own. Nor were we created to act out of instinct as were the animals. Instead, our marvelous brain was designed to work in harmony with our freedom of choice.

The Best Start
To show how caring God was, along with the gift of free will, our first parents, Adam and Eve, were given everything that anyone could reasonably want. They were put in a large, parklike paradise. They had material abundance. They had perfect minds and bodies, so they would not have to get old or get sick or die—they could have lived forever. They would have had perfect children who could also have had a happy, everlasting future. And the expanding population would have had the satisfying work of eventually turning the entire earth into a paradise.—Genesis 1:26-30; 2:15.

Regarding what was provided, the Bible relates: “God saw everything he had made and, look! it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31) The Bible also says of God: “Perfect is his activity.” (Deuteronomy 32:4) Yes, the Creator gave the human family a perfect start. It could not have been better. What a caring God he proved to be!

Freedom Within Limits
However, did God purpose for free will to be without limits? Imagine a busy city without any traffic laws, where everybody could drive in any direction at any speed. Would you want to drive under those conditions? No, that would be traffic anarchy and would surely result in many accidents.

So too with God’s gift of free will. Unlimited freedom would mean anarchy in society. There have to be laws to guide human activities. God’s Word says: “Behave like free men, and never use your freedom as an excuse for wickedness.” (1 Peter 2:16, JB) God wants free will to be regulated for the common good. He purposed for us to have, not total freedom, but relative freedom, subject to the rule of law.

Whose Laws?
Whose laws were we designed to obey? Another part of the text at 1 Peter 2:16 (JB) states: “You are slaves of no one except God.” This does not mean an oppressive slavery, but, rather, it means that we were designed to be happiest when in subjection to God’s laws. (Matthew 22:35-40) His laws, more than any laws devised by humans, provide the best guide. “I, am your God, the One teaching you to benefit yourself, the One causing you to tread in the way in which you should walk.”—Isaiah 48:17.

At the same time, God’s laws allow for great freedom of choice within their boundaries. This results in variety and makes the human family fascinating. Think of the different types of food, clothing, music, art, and homes throughout the world. We surely prefer to have our choice in such matters rather than have some other person decide for us.

Thus we were created to be happiest when subject to God’s laws for human behavior. It is similar to being subject to God’s physical laws. For instance, if we ignore the law of gravity and jump off a high place, we will be injured or killed. If we ignore the internal laws of our body and stop eating food, drinking water, or breathing air, we will die.

As surely as we were created with the need to submit to God’s physical laws, we were created with the need to submit to God’s moral and social laws. (Matthew 4:4) Humans were not created to be independent of their Maker and be successful. The prophet Jeremiah says: “It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step. Correct me, O God.” (Jeremiah 10:23, 24) So in every way humans were created to live under God’s rulership, not their own.

Obedience to God’s laws would not have been burdensome for our first parents. Instead, it would have worked for their welfare and that of the entire human family. Had the first pair stayed within the limits of God’s laws, all would have been well. In fact, we would now be living in a wonderful paradise of pleasure as a loving, united human family! There would not have been wickedness, suffering, and death.

Answer 2

Some things you do not know how to control. The world you live in is best understood if you look at it as having regular rules that you can understand better and better over time. The rules that we make up about how things work are our attempt to better understand how things really work. Jumping off a cliff will kill you. That’s a rule people make up to help them understand how to deal with cliffs. Hang gliding is possible because the behavior of the world is actually more complex than “jumping off a cliff will kill you”. A more accurate human rule gives us more capabilities or to put it another way, it makes us aware of capabilities we already had. Some things, as near as we can tell, are not up to us. You can’t put your elbow into your ear. Everyone is going to die. These things can be understood to illustrate that life is predetermined and there is nothing you can do about it. Some things you know how to control. Crime, sin, punishment, and foolishness are all based on the idea that you have a decision and made it badly. If there is no choice we might have to wonder if anyone should be punished for a crime or have to pay a bill. If you are happy with the way things seem to be going, keep going like that. Destiny might be working well for you. Just keep an eye on it. If you are not satisfied with the way things seem to be going, go ahead and try to change it. If you can’t change destiny then it won’t break anything to try. If you can make change, you can make a good change.

Answer 3

Okay...there is a similar post just a few questions back...so I'm going to have to refer to...myself by saying that even if things are already figured out, WE ARE COMPLETELY CLUELESS! Someone can predict the outcome of, say, a basketball game; however, even if they prove to be correct, they did not MAKE the game turn out how it did. The choices that were made inside that basketball game were up to the players.

As for definitions of fate vs. destiny, they DO have the same definitions but fate has a negative connotation (they were fated to fall in love but commit suicide in Romeo and Juliet) and destiny has a positive connotation ("Manifest Destiny" was America's dream of spanning from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ocean). It's all about the way we look at things.

Answer 4

It's hard to listen to recitations of the bible regarding the path of our lives. Especially when the bible says both that our lives have a plan and we have free will. Which is it?

I believe that we have free will to choose our paths. We have no control over the obstacles we face along the way, but we control our reaction to them. If all were pre-determined, we would just be a bad tv sitcom, and I don't believe that.

T.

Answer 5

Fate is to do with something you cannot change. It is your end-outcome. E.g. a ship which is going to crash into the rocks, no matter how it gets there.

Destiny is where you are headed, it is the journey, the process, and it is changeable. e.g. a ship which is changing its direction, is destined to arrive at a different destination.

Answer 6

We are pre-destined, imo....and when we think we have free will it is just doing what fate has in store.

Answer 7

If you believe in a creator, you don't believe in free will.