The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

Do you believe that every event in our life is pre-determined? Do you believe that we have free-will and the freedom to completely choose all our actions? Or, something in between?

I suspect a purely deterministic universe is implausible given the existence of quantum mechanics, but that doesn't mean that, for example, my thoughts aren't determined by the chance happenings at the atomic level, and my sense of control or direction entirely illusory.

In short, since there's no way of knowing, I don't put a lot of thought into it.  Or maybe that's just what I was predestined to, uh, not think. Dunno?

Over the past couple of months I’ve been thinking a lot about if we are all living scripted lives that we cannot change or if we have free will and the ability to completely change our fates. If you ask many psychic mediums, they will say that we have free-will at all times and that our future/fate is never set in stone. On the other hand I know many spiritual people of various paths who say that "everything happens for a reason" and that everything is fated to be.

What is your view?

Do you believe that every event in our life is pre-determined? Do you believe that we have free-will and the freedom to completely choose all our actions? Or, something in between?

I have been thinking about this subject quite a bit myself. I've never bought into either free will or determinist viewpoints completely. Personally (simply my opinion, take it with a grain of salt) I believe in a combination of both but I do think our lives are more fated than "up in the air". I think the major things in our lives are per-determined such as our career, where we will live, our romantic partner, how many kids we will have (if any), major life experiences etc. How we arrive at these things is where free-will comes in. There are many paths to get to the destination. We can delay or speed up the process depending on what we and others do but we will eventually get there.  

My opinion about psychics in regards to this issue is complex and to be honest I feel psychics are one of the big reasons as to where the idea of free will comes from within in modern day spirituality. A few years ago I went to a highly regarded psychic who gave me a reading and told me a bunch of stuff about a major life issue and assured me that the issue would work itself out within 6 months. A year later despite following the psychics advice none of the events had come to pass, in fact the complete opposite happened. I went back to the psychic not long after for another reading and they told me completely different things, contradicting the last reading. Quite frustrated I asked the psychic why her reading was so radically different from the last one, despite the fact I had followed her advice to the letter that she gave me in the previous reading. Her response was "people who are involved in your situation have free will and their actions can change the outcome", I then asked her "what's the point of a reading then?" she changed the subject and became incredibly short and huffy with me for the remainder of the session.

 
Now I personally do believe in psychic ability and maybe she was right in that maybe some people decided for whatever reason to change their mind. The thing is however I tend to find a lot of psychics often use free-will as their 'safety net'. If the predictions they make don’t come to pass, the psychic can always “blame” free will as the reason why the events did not transpire or to cover up the fact they are simply talking BS.

Just my two cents.

Same with animals, plants and nature itself. People can deny climate change/global warming all they want, but it's still going to happen. Yet that only has happened because of choices made in the past.

 
this part here summarizes the concept really well, I think.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been thinking a lot about if we are all living scripted lives that we cannot change or if we have free will and the ability to completely change our fates. If you ask many psychic mediums, they will say that we have free-will at all times and that our future/fate is never set in stone. On the other hand I know many spiritual people of various paths who say that "everything happens for a reason" and that everything is fated to be.

What is your view?

Do you believe that every event in our life is pre-determined? Do you believe that we have free-will and the freedom to completely choose all our actions? Or, something in between?

 
I fall under the combination of both thinking, though if it is a spectrum more towards the free will side. Similar to what Tom described, I believe I have the free will to choose my actions/life course, but at the same time outside forces and their choices or random happenings narrow my choices. If my car is rear-ended by another, I don't think the crash was "fated" to happen, but at the same time there wasn't much I could do to control the actions of the person who hit me if I was driving properly. Likewise, the sun will likely begin to die in about 5 billion years not because it is preordained, but because that is how the star's lifecycle happens to work, physically.

So I guess I believe completely in free will, but the actions of others (be they people, animals, and natural forces) are, for the most part, out of our control. The earthquake happens for a reason...because a fault ruptured. Not to punish, test, or otherwise have any direct reason to impact humans. Not because when the universe was conceived the earthquake was part of that plan.

This belief in free will was a major part of why I eventually became a pagan. I was raised in a fairly liberal Christian environment, but a few years ago I started having a bit of a crisis of reconciling that religion with my ideals of freedom and independence. The whole "I gave you free will, but you're supposed to use it to do what I say because I'm testing you, and if you use it to do something other than what I tell you to do then you will go to hell" concept did not jive with freedom at all.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been thinking a lot about if we are all living scripted lives that we cannot change or if we have free will and the ability to completely change our fates. If you ask many psychic mediums, they will say that we have free-will at all times and that our future/fate is never set in stone. On the other hand I know many spiritual people of various paths who say that "everything happens for a reason" and that everything is fated to be.

What is your view?

Do you believe that every event in our life is pre-determined? Do you believe that we have free-will and the freedom to completely choose all our actions? Or, something in between?

 
This is an awesome question!! I try to keep in perspective that if reality exists outside my beliefs about it then it's not really a matter of my belief but of what is. And if reality is influenced by my beliefs, then I should try to make them good ones....

I think the capacity for consciousness exists within matter and energy itself, at different degrees of awareness and capacity to influence the static principles of physics that govern this reality. I think it's possible that life itself (and possibly other functions of the matter in the universe) represent an ongoing struggle for sensing forms of matter of energy to harness that tiny spark of will to go in the direction of what feels good (to achieve states of being preferred by atoms and subatomic particles) while facing a huge array of obstacles and lack of power to overcome. I think a huge portion of behavior comes from straightforward functions of matter and energy that we do not understand or have power over, but I think any being that attains any sensing or aware ability at all can use what spark it has to strive to go in the direction it seeks, and to lift up and unite with other beings to help each other gain more ability to do so. (It's also possible that even outside the human realm beings of various sorts may swing towards thriving as individuals disconnected from the welfare of others or the direction of uniting with others. Bacteria and micro-organisms can be observed to life out pro-social or altruistic as well as selfish behavior that can harm the system as a whole to the benefit of the individual.)

These are just musings though, like I said, I don't know that it's up to me. If it's up to me I would seek a lot less suffering in this world, and a lot more harmony and well being.

In short, since there's no way of knowing, I don't put a lot of thought into it.  Or maybe that's just what I was predestined to, uh, not think. Dunno?

This matches my opinion: there's no way to know so I don't spend much time thinking about it.