Free Will or Fate?
The Truth About Human Destiny and Evolving Consciousness
Debate as old as time: free will vs. determinism (a.k.a. “the will of God”). Do we freely choose our own course? Or alternatively, are our lives dictated by some external God-force under the guise of “fate”? (Or might it be a little of both?)
Religious Perspectives
Back in my Christian days, when I wrote Raising Hell: Christianity’s Most Controversial Doctrine Put Under Fire, I remember seeing this conundrum at a new level. At that time I first learned of and then demonstrated the nonsensical contradictions between Calvinism and Arminianism, the two predominant conservative Christian views of Biblical interpretation on the topic of destiny.
In a nutshell, Calvinists believe that one’s salvation is fully determined by God, not by one’s free will choice. God, they say, created and chose a certain number of humans for salvation, while the rest he intentionally created for destruction in eternal hell. 😱🤬🤯👹
Those in the Arminian camp believe that salvation is completely the result of one’s free will or choice. One must freely respond to God’s invitation to be saved, albeit in a very specific way. This is despite the fact that most people who have ever lived have never been presented with The Choice or the very specific method involved. God, they say, offers us the gift of life, but we have to first hear about it, accept it, and then implement it, or it does us no good. “Off to hell you go now” (said in my best Irish accent)!
This puts a great burden for the eternal destinies on the shoulders of those who do know about The Choice, hence the need for missionaries. But really…what kind of a God would make frail, spiritually blind, and misled humans—and not his all-knowing self—responsible for keeping others from eternal torture? Repulsive and sad that I spent decades believing such mind-fuckery.
Both views are adamant that the Bible only teaches their worldview on the most important high stakes outcome of the eternal destinies of real living souls, to the exclusion of the other. And both offer a plethora of verses to support their doctrines and counter the other belief system’s doctrines. And both, it seems, can make a 50% solid case when using only the Bible as their support (not common sense).
If there was such a place as hell, Calvinism depicts God as a deplorable monster who makes Hitler look even better than Mother Teresa. Arminianism, on the other hand, depicts God as a weak, pitiful deity who sits by wringing his hands hoping that he won’t lose too many of his own creatures to the more prevailing will of man.
Growing up as a conservative Christian, I was raised in the free will Arminian camp. I couldn’t accept the notion that a “loving God” would intentionally create the majority of humanity for the sake of punishment and eternal loss.
However, as I started moving into the Universalist worldview (all people are reconciled to God in a plan of ages, through their evolving consciousness), I traded in my free will view for determinism. There were so many verses to support God getting what God wants, which I could now see as a good thing—the salvation and restoration of all. Once it was framed that way—wide, victorious, and inclusive—I could accept determinism as a higher truth. In this view, God’s determinate will in the preserving of all souls on this journey of life was sure, and no one could be lost. I was happy to rest my spiritual worldview there, and have not needed a church or Bible since.
Destiny Outside of Religion
Moving on from the religious definitions and applications. Even if we now realize that it’s ludicrous to box some Supreme Deity into two polar theological ideologies, we still have some valid questions about these two concepts and their interplay in our daily lives.
Free Will: Is one’s life trajectory or outcome determined by free will? Do we ultimately have the ability to choose our own path in life? Can we at least respond with free will choices to all events that seem out of our control?
The Law of Attraction would say that we only obtain or experience what we have already chosen, intended, or believed for ourselves. The Law of Attraction is the ultimate support for free will. What you think about, you bring about. What you believe and perceive, you conceive.
Now, I have to admit that it’s really difficult for me to swallow an ideology that would suggest that innocent children come into this world, somehow choosing abuse as their daily reality. Or abandonment. Or being orphaned. This is where my brain cannot wrap around any kind of choice involved. In fact, this is what kept me from studying the Law of Attraction for so long. My own experience of physical abuse and emotional abandonment in my childhood led to a host of deep-seated struggles in areas of attachment, love, and self-worth throughout my adult life. As all other victims of abuse, I was at-risk for repeating those traumas with my own children, a thought that kept me buried in therapy and self-help books throughout my twenties. (Thankfully, I did not repeat and they grew up feeling secure, loved, and valued.) But the point being, I could not believe I ever would have chosen that level of fear, suffering, and struggle for myself.
But how do we know that we come in as “innocent” children? Some people think that we attracted our childhood setting and problems from the previous lifetime(s). As evolving, eternal souls on a continuum, not isolated from our previous experiences, we are here to learn lessons, to grow, to right previous wrongs, or complete unfinished business from previous lifetimes. I later came to see how there could be merit in this, especially if our lifetimes on the earth realm are not as serious and permanent as they feel.
A question though. Can we ever truly know if we have legitimate free will? For example, in January of 2019, my husband “Shucks” and I made a “free will decision” to come to Puerto Rico for a winter vacation. We had in mind to look for a potential investment property if we liked PR because the property values were incredibly low after hurricane Maria decimated the island two years earlier. It was the one chance in our lives when we thought we might actually be able to afford something near a beach, like a small condo we could rent out to pay for itself.
On day two of our three-week visit, Shucks noticed a property on Zillow in the mountains. We weren’t even looking for property in the mountains, but it did sound interesting. We made a wild, rugged trek to 2,500 feet above sea level to the most stunning property we could have imagined, and it seemed as if the owners, an older American couple who were ready to move back to the States, were practically giving it away! It truly felt like we had found a winning lottery ticket on the street!
Almost the first day we set foot on the property, we both felt as if a vision came to us for the future of the property, which was to turn it into a small healing retreat to share with others (we opened our first two Airbnbs in 2022, and here). In fact, the name of the property, Refugio de Los Dioses (Refuge of the Gods), came to us the first day, and to this day, we still call it Refugio for short (RefugioPuertoRico on social media).
Here’s where it gets really interesting. The owners wanted cash. I could never imagine in my life that I would pay cash for a home and property. But we had been living in North Idaho, which was starting to boom at that time. We had invested in a couple properties there because the values had been extremely low after a recession. After visiting PR and knowing we needed cash quickly, we came home and listed our properties in the middle of a heavy sellers market. Property values had spiked beyond belief, and we were able to make the cash deal happen within the allotted time.
A couple months after closing on Refugio, in April of 2019, a thought came to me out of the blue to check the building contract price on a home Shucks and I had previously built in Wyoming. The reason why this matters is that, thirteen years earlier, we had both been suddenly inspired to sell the home we had barely finished constructing and give nearly all the equity—mostly sweat equity—to an orphan ministry. The catalyst happened when I accompanied a medical mission team to Haiti as a journalist. The team was operating on behalf of Hopegiver’s International, a dedicated orphan ministry located in Haiti and India.
Since we had done a lot of the work ourselves on our home, we were able to sell it for a substantial amount more than it cost to build. Part of the money would be designated to build an orphanage in Haiti and the rest would go to the ongoing work in India (I talked about this ministry a couple weeks ago when I told you the story of how I met “Papa,” a revolutionary world changer with a vision). Eventually we both went to work for this organization, but that came a little later.
So as soon as I had the thought, I dug up our old files, and discovered that the cost of the new property that we were able to pay in cash, was the exact amount we paid to build the house we gave up for orphans!
I was reminded of the day we walked away from the beautiful home that we had literally poured our blood, sweat, and tears into. We walked through the neighborhood one last time, crying our eyes out. Suddenly it began to rain, as it seemed the skies were crying with us. We asked the Universe to give us a promise that it would always take care of us because we were taking a big risk in giving up all our security. As we rounded the corner for home, a magical double rainbow appeared over our house that was so vivid and close, I knew it was an answer of reassurance for us. And now, the Universe reminded me again, that it was making good on it’s promise in ways we could not have compreheded.
Was that initial trip to PR “free will”? It sure felt like it at the time. But most of us can look back over the twists and turns of life and see that they all added up to something meaningful…determinate even. If one event or circumstance hadn’t been in place, it wouldn’t have led to the next event, which would not have led you to where you are today. I realize this may not be helpful if you don’t like the place you’re at today, or can’t see the wonder in all of the moving pieces and how they shaped your experience and lessons in a positive or transformational way. I think it one waits long enough, that moment does come though.
The other perspective I have written about is that, if we truly are in a simulation of sorts, the heavy reality we think we are experiencing is more of a trick of the mind, a temporary perception, and is not real. It’s an opportunity for growth and experience, and not the dense, painful reality that feels like endless toil for seven or eight decades. In such a scenario, our higher selves are reportedly safely on the other side of the veil, watching over us and helping us come back to safe reality in between “earth game” lives. In this case, suffering is temporary, purposeful, and cannot consume or harm the real, immortal beings that we are.
Fate/Determinism: Pendulum swing to the other side. Is one’s earthly life determined by fate? Do you and I happen into lives that were predetermined for us, and whose events and unfurling stories have been pre-charted, with no real opportunity for true choice? After all, you were born into a certain family, culture, socioeconomic status, religion, physical body, era in history, all of which elicited determinant effects on your experience that did not afford you a choice, right?
I have often wondered about synchronicities too. How would synchronicities happen outside of some kind of fated or heavenly orchestrated events? I have written about a few of my bizarre and inexplicable synchronicities (and here) that seemed to be fate doing a dance in front of my face, or leading me along with that silver thread through time. WHO was shaping events and coaxing me along a certain path or outcome? A Supreme Being? My Higher Self? My guides? My Inner Self? The simulation itself?🤷🏽
I have also read about how one’s microbiome, which is proposed to contain even more microbial members than a person’s number of cells in their body (implying that “you” are less “you” than “them”), is often influencing our choices. Parasites, fungi, bacteria, and viruses, by the trillions, daily impact our health and even social choices through chemical signals via our neurological systems. These hitchhikers that contribute to the whole “universe” of us, have their own opinions on what we do (here’s a longer article). This is one reason why you crave what your body is used to eating. If you eat junk or poor-quality food because you crave it incessantly, change that to healthy food and notice that after a couple weeks, your body starts craving the higher quality food because you have shifted the quality of your microbiome species.
Mind programming is another issue. We come into this realm as infants and young children in a theta brainwave state. It’s a hypnotic state of mind where we are forming all of our subconscious programming for life—more evidence of a simulation if you ask me. It’s like we fall into the game board of earth realm and must receive our “programming instructions” on the “computer hard memory” (ROM) of our brains. Most people are completely unaware of these subconscious programs that dictate the choices and operation of about 98% of their waking lives as adults. This is a little different than the notion of a force outside of ourselves determining our fate, but these unconscious programs are one of the most powerful obstacles we humans are up against in charting our own destinies. “Waking up” is partly about becoming conscious of these programs and intentionally choosing differently.
All this is to say, can we truly know if anything we experience is the result of fate or determinism? If the Law of Attraction is true, you can change your fate. You can change your destiny (but not to your demise). To me this suggests that determinism isn’t the highest reality or action potential in our earth experience.
A little of Both?
We don’t really know Who created this realm in the past, or Who is currently creating this experience for us individually and collectively. Is it a God outside of ourselves? Is it a higher aspect of ourselves outside of space and time? No one can say for sure on this side.
This fall I have been learning how to do professional readings of “applied astrology.” This is an application of astrology that feels like validation therapy. When you get a reading you feel seen and heard regarding your unique personality, your life challenges, and your main life’s purpose. Then you are given one or two things you can take away to work on to bring more balance, joy, and success into your life based on unique astral influences interacting with you, personally.
I recently heard an interesting interview with Robert Gilbert on Aubrey Marcus. Gilbert, an ex-U.S. Marine Corps instructor in Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Warfare Defense, later dedicated himself to extensive independent research into the geometric basis of modern science and new technologies. He is currently an expert in Vibrational Science and BioGeometry. According to Gilbert and many other contemporary intelligent, accomplished scientists and spiritual practitioners, astrology, with its ancient roots in combining science and art, teaches that our solar system planets each emit unique psychological effects on humans. This could account for the energies orchestrating the cards we are dealt at birth as well as the many progressions and changes throughout our lives. From what I can see just in my own astrological chart, this ancient science is real.
A natal chart is the term for the cards you were dealt at birth—all the aspects that feel deterministic: your ego personality, soul personality, major area of wounding that does not heal throughout your life, major life lesson, and life trajectory direction that will make you the most fulfilled. The natal chart can also reveal family dynamics, professional aspirations, past life and future life characteristics.
Transits and progressions show energetic influences in the changing days and seasons of life that act on your ever-evolving self. The transits and progressions are predictable based on charts of planetary alignments that go back for at least 9,000 years. How they impact your life are in question. This is where the art comes in. You could say that the natal chart is fate, while the evolving chart is a dance between fated events and freewill choices toward those events.
Where to Land?
Are you a victim of your life (determinism), or the hero/villain of your life (free will)?
Are you merely the created inferior being, or are you a Creator who is able to shape your own reality and destiny?
Are you here to have a subjective, reactive experience, or might you also be here to have an objective, proactive experience?
To choose one worldview as the absolute is to subject oneself to a limited, dualistic view of life, which ultimately impairs growth. The evolution of a soul tells us that we can’t be too certain or persistent about any single thing. Most “truths” that we encounter along the way are both true and false at the same time, depending on our perspective. Which is why our truths of yesterday are no longer true today.
I spent most of my life believing in ultimate free will as my absolute truth. Then when I learned a higher perspective, my beliefs shifted to determinism (because of the implications of Universalism). But then, I grew in my thinking to where I could finally be open to the Law of Attraction, which showed me that an even higher truth than determinism is, once again, free will. Only this new free will is an empowered free will, with much higher perspectives that can be used for great intentional creative abilities.
It was at this point I began to see that when you wake up to your power as God within a human experience (your own I AM presence), you gain the capacity for free will choices that truly can shape your destiny. You are then no longer the victim, or the one who has to search for a power outside yourself.
And finally, today, I see that it is always “both-and.” It seems from this limited point of view in 3D that we are dealt certain cards, or fated events happen into our lives. But we have the power to choose how to respond to those events. And even moreso, when we are living intentionally from our Creator Being, we can create the lives and realities we want, regardless of any fated events. What great power and hope we have!
Very thought provoking, great article as usual