The phenomena of human life are mixed between good and evil, and the goodness of God in the mind of man clashes with the reality of pain in his life. The issue of pain and evil puts the goodness of God under question, or puts His omnipotence and goodness in contradiction! These questions have always tormented human thought. Throughout history, many solutions have emerged to explain the issue of the presence of evil with the goodness of God, that is, to explain the presence and absence of goodness at the same time.

Therefore, the forms of belief in destiny - the written fate, to which we must “submit” - have varied. There is an eternal “fate-destiny” written in the divine Qur’an that must be fulfilled, and no matter what circumstances a person encounters in his life, he must believe that this is decreed in the divine plan, so he accepts it and submits to it, surrendering his matter to God.

The colors and tools of this faith are many, and they all believe deeply that a higher power rules and governs the universe and is not overcome by any other force. Some believe in coincidences, others in fate, and still others in reading fate, astrology and horoscopes... as if this higher power, or God in religions, has drawn for everything and every person a destiny that they cannot transgress. In other words, it is the natural moral law in the universe, which even human freedom cannot violate. And God’s work, instead of that natural power, is to write destinies for people that we must surrender to and accept, thus resting from analyzing the causes and bearing responsibility for the results. Some give people some freedom, but it does not go beyond limited options, all of which will lead people back to fulfilling the divine will in the end.

The concept of predestined destiny and divine eternal decree all mean that God has “predetermined” the future of all things and all people. Ultimately, man does not have the primary role in determining his destiny, but rather his role is limited to fulfilling what is destined for him.

This belief in God’s predestination of human destinies lifts a very important issue from man, which is the responsibility for evil in this world. Any evil event is caused either by man or by God, if we want to analyze things logically! Since God’s goodness, in religions, is an axiom that must not be touched, the responsibility for evil returns to man. Here, if man wants to lift his responsibility, he must attribute this responsibility to an unknown force (fate and destiny) or to an unknown divine wisdom (God’s good wisdom), and surrender his affairs, free from responsibility for any pain or evil in the reality of life.

Why did this or that die for one reason or another, like this and now? It is fate! While in reality, behind this may be hidden reasons such as negligence, ignorance, and human moral evils for which we must bear responsibility. Behind this, then, lies not God’s predetermined will, but man’s free will. So the concept of fate and destiny is an old philosophical and then religious saying, and it is the easiest way to lift man’s responsibility for evils in this world.

The concept of predestination is not only contrary to the teaching of the Bible, but also contrary to logic. If all things are written in advance, this means that we have no right to praise a person for his virtue or to hold another accountable for his vice. He who does good deeds is controlled, not free to choose, and has no merit in that, and he who commits evil deeds is also controlled, not free to choose, and has no fault in that. The principle of predestination is contrary to human experience in establishing courts and establishing principles of punishments and rewards. Deep down, people do not believe in predestination. Because in reality, they organize their societies on the principle of reward and punishment.

What is the benefit of caring for a person or looking after him as long as his future is determined and his destiny is written? Whether you get tired or not, destiny is certain! Therefore, the concept of fate and destiny also contradicts human experience in education, building schools, teaching, medicine, and every attempt at good in all fields. Human logic does not act based on belief in fate and destiny, that is, on the assumption that we are controlled and have no choice. On the contrary, all systems of social life are based on foundations built on human freedom and responsibility towards life, with its good and evil.

Our Christian literature, especially that which was contemporary with paganism in the first Christian centuries (the third and fourth), dealt with these concepts because of their prevalence at that time. But let alone the fact that many people believe in them to this day, many are professionals in the profession of “fortune-telling”, reading coffee cups and reading the future according to horoscopes. Unfortunately, more of them believe in this. How many television and radio stations dedicate hours of broadcasting to these concepts that many people look forward to?

Belief in the concept of predestination or eternal decree of God is the opposite of belief in God according to the Christian concept. God has his will but respects the will of man. Can the will of man contradict the will of God? The answer is clear! It explains the existence of evil in the world. Because the will of God is always good, who “wants all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4). This good divine will is not imposed on man in a deterministic manner, but rather it is a commandment, advice and a call. The will of God is in opposition to the free will of man and does not want to replace or cancel it. Human freedom is God’s gift to man. If man loses his freedom, he immediately loses his humanity and returns to the level of instinctive animals. The most beloved thing in man is the freedom that God has given him. Any virtue that is achieved without free choice is not a virtue. The horse has no pride in its speed, nor does the bird in its flight, for this is in its nature. Natural goodness is not a moral virtue; it is a gift that its possessor has no choice over. Moral virtue necessarily requires the possibility of an opposite choice. Choosing good because it is the only solution is not good and virtuous. But choosing good in the midst of evil solutions is “virtue”!

If God's will is for the good of man, then God trains human freedom and helps it with commandments, grace and various means, but He does not impose any good thing or prevent any evil thing from man when the latter wants it, because He wants man to be virtuous, that is, conscious and freely choose from the many options what is good. When man sins, this is not due to a written fate but to the freedom given to him, which we must accept from the beginning that it will be wrong or right, according to man's awareness or ignorance, according to his faith or rejection of God's commandments and ways. God removes error from man's life not by depriving him of choice (even the wrong one), but by training him, surrounding him and caring for him. For this purpose He Himself came incarnate and sent the commandments, the prophets and the Holy Books and founded the Church so that through it, He would be alongside human freedom and help it in making the good decision. For God “does not wake a wife before she wants to” (Song of Songs 2:7).

If God’s will does not usurp man’s freedom, does this mean that man’s freedom can prevent God’s will? The answer is yes. Who made God weep? Didn’t Jesus weep over Jerusalem, saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often I would have gathered your little ones…” Yes, God’s will was not fulfilled in Jerusalem. People wanted the opposite of what God wanted, and their will was fulfilled, and God wept over the wrong choice of the people of Jerusalem.

Belief in predestination is due to religion’s tendency to guarantee two things: The first is “God’s omnipotence.” That is, everything happens by His will and nothing is beyond His power. The second is “God’s omniscience.” Nothing happens that God is unaware of, and everything is by His knowledge and will.

Does this human freedom cast doubt on the “omnipotence of God”? At first glance, the answer is yes. But according to the Christian faith, God’s omnipotence is realized in the divine plan not by removing human freedom when it conflicts with it, but by increasing divine giving, intervening in human history, and training man until he does God’s will by his free choice. God is omnipotent, yes, but he does not want to override human freedom, and if he wants goodness, he does not achieve it without the free participation of man. Therefore, God places his goodness—by his will—on the consent of man, so that his omnipotence will be realized eschatologically in the end.

Does “God’s omniscience” mean that He has already written the fate of everything and every person? Here we must distinguish between God preceding and knowing and God preceding and writing. God, in His wisdom, knows everything in the future. But this does not mean that He predestinates and writes everything. God’s omnipotent knowledge of things does not mean His approval of them. Therefore, “not a hair falls from our heads except by His knowledge,” but His knowledge of things does not mean His approval of everything. He knows human choice in advance. As He said to the disciples, “One of you will betray Me,” but He added, warningly, “Woe to him who betrays the Son of Man,” for He does not want that. What prevents God from preceding and stopping the evil that He knows will happen in advance? It is His respect for human freedom!

 We have images from human experience that clarify this for us. It is easy for one of us to look at his son and say about him, for example, this one will become a great musician, he is ahead of the game and reads. He may take care of his son in this field, and he may succeed, not because he violently creates a musician out of his son and molds him like this as if he were a doll or a mere deaf substance, but because his vision was correct; and he may not succeed! And if we as humans, with our simple wisdom, succeed sometimes and fail other times, God, with His absolute wisdom, always reads the truth of the future.

All the verses in the Holy Bible, especially in Paul the Apostle, that refer to God’s predestination or to the “record of life,” or that “no one comes to the Son except he whom the Father has drawn (in advance)” and other such images and verses, all fall under the concept of “God’s foreknowledge” of things, and not under the concept of “His predestination of destinies.” God allows human errors to occur even though He does not want them. How does He remove them? By training and caring for man.

God’s “omnipotence” and goodness, his “omniscience” of things, but also at the same time his respect for and preservation of “human freedom”, are realities that make us Christians look to the future with optimism and security but also with conscious responsibility.

Metropolitan Boulos Yazigi
About the book “Travellers between Heaven and Earth”