– There’s this one aspect that seems that it has always been attached with theology, or just how people interpreted God’s feelings about them or something else in general in any given situation, what we call luck, or providence, intertwined with fate, not as far as an invariable determinism is concerned, but just how things end up turning out.
– Do you believe in it?
– In what? Fate?
– Yes.
– Sure.
– But doesn’t that contradict free-will and thus accountability?
– It depends on how you look at it. I don’t think that every single little thing is determined about whatever you might do with your day tomorrow, as in how you’re going to do whatever it is that you’re going to: what you’re going to have for breakfast, the small variations it will occur concerning the way you’re going to prepare it, despite of usually having the same thing for some time, what clothes are you going to wear, how will you put them on, how are you going to drive your car, whatever it is that you might be thinking about when you’re doing any of those things. To a certain extent, I do believe in fate, but because I see it as a consequence of choice, of having gone down that road instead of this one, as in, whichever road you choose to travel on, it will invariably lead to a certain destination. It’s in this sense I say that I believe in fate or destiny.
»And a Christian understanding on this matter can also be seen as in saying that things will turn out to be as they’re already understood as in going to turn out to be. God knows all things, and so He knows how they will end up. We’ll invariably reach an ending stage, that’s inevitable, but we can choose how to get there and, most of all, we undoubtedly have a decisive role on what will become of us individually on the light of our choices. Therefore, yes, we are free and certain events in the future can indeed be changed – and, here, I’m not talking about because of shifting choices or ways of life or something, as in choosing to go down this road instead of that one, but really changing things through prayer, by asking God’s intercession –, but, on the other hand, there was this one initial place, if you like, in the beginning, and there will be only one also in the end, so, in that sense, it is predetermined and unchangeable. Not to mention Holy Scripture, as in, it is being fulfilled and, as Jesus said, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than the smallest element in Scripture be left unfulfilled. Therefore, you might say it’s something of a paradox: the Bible can’t be changed and will inevitably be fulfilled, but God is a Living God, and you can relate with Him on a personal level, thus some interference with Reality, or the way Scripture is fulfilled, appropriately understood, can be taken as acceptable.
– But it seems that, as it is, we can’t consider ourselves truly free, but only have ourselves as such due to an illusion.
– There’s this argument in philosophical anthropology where it’s said that human beings, or the human spirit or soul, due for being constituted with a desire for an eternal life and an infinite good, the human spirit is indeed free and undetermined in the choices that he makes in this world, because all the forms of good that this world has to offer are contingent and finite, thus being the same goodness’ of this world pursued or chosen not because of the unavoidable coerciveness or inescapable effect they have over ourselves, but by choice and assent of a free willed being.
»God’s will or opinion about ourselves, individually or as a community, has been very much linked with fortune associated with the moments, days or epochs. For instance, if the Nile didn’t flooded conveniently one year, it was generally assumed, then, that the community or the Pharaoh had done something wrong, thus penalized by God by means of that inconvenient behavior of the Nile, which would damage the fruitfulness of the land, which would make the crops not so abundant. On the other hand, if the Nile flooded consistently throughout a number of years, it was assumed, then, that the Pharaoh or the community in general were behaving appropriately on the eyes of God, thus being rewarded with convenient flooding, which would make the land fertile, which would provide good crops. And by mentioning the Nile, I mean any other river in any other part of the world.
– Or for the outcome of wars.
– That’s a good example as well.
– God’s pleasance was always with the victors. Military victory seems that was always understood as for reasons of moral and theological superiority.
– Christ also said something about that matter, given that in Israel, in general, misfortune was associated with a sinful state, individually and as a community. If things went wrong, it was because a sin was made on the eyes of God, thus a consequent punishment. At the community level, you have, for instance, the exile in Babylon, which was understood as in having occurred as a consequence of a sinful behavior on part of the community throughout the years, such as religious apostasy. On the individual level, you have the infertile state of women, that hadn’t bore child yet. These women were generally understood to be sinners, thus punished by God with their sterility.
– And what did Christ say?
– Jesus said that bad things didn’t necessarily happen because of sinful behavior. He didn’t dismiss it altogether, though, but not linked good or bad events due to immediate punishment nor reward. When Jesus mentioned the fact of the Siloam tower having collapsed and killed a number of people in Jerusalem, He commented that the ones that died in that collapse didn’t suffer that because they were the most sinful persons in the city. But He also recommended, however, after having healed a blind man or a leper, for him not to sin again, so that a worst thing wouldn’t befall on him. So just because something isn’t going the way you desire it to go, doesn’t mean that God is necessarily discontent about you or something, and vice versa. What should be concluded of this is the effort for keeping in mind that this world is temporary. And after having known not only that God exists, and He is what we can already see and understand in Jesus Christ, by this fact alone, and if you truly believe in Him, it should be understood, then, as in having already gained all the luck in the world, that is, by already knowing the Truth about Reality and what that Truth was translated into on the indescribable greatness of God in the Light of His Son and the promises linked with His Person, thus nothing, whatever it may be, can ever take that away, so resulting in us being or already should be, by faith in His Promise, lifted above all of the circumstances of the days through the wings of a pledge for an Eternal Life where all the variances of fortune and evil aren’t and can be no more.
– Why do you think that God doesn’t just bestows the gift of faith to everyone?
– That sort of question comes from an inappropriate or forgetful knowledge about essential premises about God, or God’s Being or Nature, namely the fact of Him being Absolute, as we can read Jesus pointing out also about Himself in the Gospels. Not wanting to speculate too much about it, there is, at least, this one thing we can know for sure about what that condition implies: God doesn’t need anything. He doesn’t need souls, He doesn’t need Angels, He doesn’t need the world. Him alone is absolutely sufficient. And it has nothing to do with morality nor personality nor anything that could ever be deemed as some kind of flaw – quite on the contrary, because He’s Absolute – , but just because of being a direct consequence of His Divine Nature. But what could be even more disturbing about this is the fact that despite that absoluteness, that requires nor needs nothing for absolute happiness, God still created – therefore, right from the start, by this fact alone, He is indeed Pure Love, or Mercy in advance, by forgiving all creatures not being God like Him and existing like Him already without an act of His will –, and not only He created but He’s still Someone you can related to on a personal level, hence prayer. That is to say, an answering your question, maybe oversimplifying it, but if no one reminds God to convert people, or pray with that intention anyway, for Him, it’s the same, because He Is Absolute already.
– But it seems that, at some level, He must have created because He needed to.
– Not because He needed, but because He could. Necessity doesn’t seem to apply here, because it contradicts the concept of absoluteness, as if something was missing, and if something is missing, whatever it is that we are talking about can no longer be considered absolute.
– I see.
– Anyway, what was said, here, about praying for conversion, might be considered a way of thinking about this. But we’re addressing the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and a Love so great, out of an absolute unnecessary creation, so… what can we really say…? And if you add to that what God has done through Jesus, as in how far He has gone so to make us understand the Truth, it seems that there is even less that could be said.
»What are we, as creatures, suppose to do or feel, when contemplating Eternal Life? Is that Reality already sunk in the way it should? Shouldn’t that reality be prioritized so to really put things in perspective? Won’t, whatever it may derive from that appropriate acceptance, naturally set, then, all the rest in its proper place? Won’t that acceptance really deliver us from the weight of any eagerness about earthly things or already from just any general anxiety or hopelessness we might feel and would try to elude ourselves from with deemed honorable worries and pleasures that this world could ever offer us, thus truthfully setting or at least sending the soul down a true path of peace and tranquility? I am going to live forever. Do you really believe that? As in really, and not just «sure I do, because I’m a Christian»? What is the constant of the creature? Saint Paul seemed to have alluded to this in chapter thirteen of his first Letter to the Corinthians: even if it is done whatever it might be positively done, if one does not have love, we are nothing and all is in vain. And Saint Paul goes to describe, then, what love is, but only, it seems, while it reflects here, in this world, so beginning to describe it as patience. But what is that constant in Eternity? Thankfulness and praise of God? Overwhelmed in the Light of God stimuli, where wrongfulness can be no more? Peace at last, from haughtiness and envy now all have been delivered! Now our talent no longer threatens, now our light no longer bothers, now Our Lord no longer hides, for our talent was not our talent, and our light was not our light, because appear as we do of movement, as we do of speech and deeds, we’re just a night and a riverbed, where waters flow and stars ignite.