On one hand, we celebrate the belief that we are blessed with free will. On the other hand, whenever anything goes wrong we shake our heads and sigh, “It’s the will of God.” We simply can’t have it both ways. We cannot choose to believe we are in charge of our own destiny while simultaneously assuming that an all-powerful being maintains the right to divert our path anytime He/She/They (and I’m leaving your choice of spirituality open here) choose.
In short, if you analyze the relationships of gods to men, you are forced to one of two conclusions:
There is a God, in which case the aspirations of men don’t matter. So why bother?
There is no God, in which case we are alone in the universe, there is neither heaven nor hell, and this miserable endless hardship of a life is all we get, with no hope of eternal reward for the good or eternal damnation for the wicked. So why bother?
And my head just spins when considering predestination. After all, if it is possible to predict some things in detail, shouldn’t it be possible to predict all things?
My Sunday School teacher once said that God looks down upon us every day with great interest and amusement. One wishes God had found an amusing puppet show in lieu of inflicting hardship upon us. But go argue with God.