One of the most damaging philosophical perspectives I’ve ever encountered is that of predestination. I say that because of predestination’s affect on people when they try to internalize it and it begins to change how they live.

What is free will?

I’ve heard free will defined in various ways. Some people believe that unless a choice is made without the outcome of that choice being known beforehand, that choice is predetermined and thus there is no free will involved.

To me, that seems simplistic, because God must necessarily be outside of time. (or no creator may exist, which I reject as an article of faith–note, that ideology also has negative consequences in the lives and societies of anyone who accepts it).

If God creates time and is not subject to it, then trying to understand how a choice could exist whose outcome is not known to God, who created the time in which it exists is not conducive to sanity.

Maybe a perspective shift is in order?

From our perspective, if God is creating each moment of time as we experience it, and we are able to make choices, then we have to think about this a different way, more in line with ourselves than an attempt at a big-picture perspective.

God gives us free will by enabling us to choose as we make each choice. From our perspective, free will is composed of making choices that have consequences (and frankly, common sense should be applied here).

Try asking a mentally handicapped person whether free will is real. Go ahead and do it in the simplest terms you can think of. Without getting lost in the intellectual weeds, you can’t do it, and they won’t understand it because it’s a stupid question, and to be clear, the point isn’t that it requires great intellect to understand lofty ideas.

The point is that the question of free will from the perspective of someone with a simple, direct connection with reality becomes a tautology. “Of course I am making choices right now that have consequences. What are you? Daft? If I smack you in the face, will that illustrate the point?”

Get your head around it if you can.

I can somewhat successfully complete the mental gyrations necessary to understand that a God who is not subject to time creating people who are able to make choices is a miracle in and of itself (possibly the second-most astounding thing God did).

I can also understand why some physicists and theologians believe that everything that happens is scripted. (From outside of time, how do you understand choice? Choice requires time. Otherwise all you have is being.)

The upshot is that to exist in this world, created by a God not subject to time, choice must be enabled by God in the act of creation.

If you can’t get your head around it, it doesn’t matter anyway.

If you take one thing away from this, let it be the following:

From a human perspective, we must always look at life as if every choice we make MATTERS.

The perspective is the key. If something tempts you to believe that your actions don’t matter, reject it instantly. If you can sort out the intellectual idea of predestination and why it doesn’t matter subjectively to you, that’s great, but don’t let it bother you, because it’s really not material to how you act.

The only possible human reaction to predestination is a bad one.

Because people are designed to take responsibility for their actions and hopefully to make positive choices that have positive consequences, any intellectual gymnastics that distract from that must have negative consequences.

The great danger of predestination is that it tempts us to forfeit responsibility for our actions (and eventually to despair, because something very basic in each of us hungers for responsibility.)

Your beliefs and the actions you take as a result of them matter.