Do you believe in fate, Neo?
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Wolran Kim
Jan. 2012
All human beings are not free in the matter of birth and death. We also can not choose our parents or appearance. At that point, I believe in fate because the picture’s frame which we are drawn lies outside of our intentions. If our beginning and end are in other’s hands, our choices and decisions are meaningless just like childish mischief during a short time—a hundred years. But it’s creepy, our lives are filled with tests of choices from paltry things such as waking up or not, what kind of food to eat for breakfast, what kind of clothes to wear for school, to serious things such as getting married, getting a job, or having kids. Also, our choices determine the quality and direction of our lives. Therefore human beings are the fishes in the fish bowl as I mentioned in the free write #1. We are absolutely free in the palm of the Creator who we never understand.
Fate is a power which transcends human’s will and the ultimate decision which includes the whole universe with human’s intents regardless of human’s will. It is the absolute power that is inevitable, difficult to predict, governs all happenings, and has no one to obey. We turn the cause into doom whenever we are opposite of an irresistible force. Therefore divine destiny has been the subject of worship and abstract philosophical and theological themes. In addition, there are many different ways of charm such as oracles and astrology used to predict doom and the laws of the power. A contention of fate and freedom will be a theme of ancient art started from a Greek tragedy. I think that fate and freedom have opposite meanings, but humans are free in destiny because our fate is out of the human perception.
Free Will is people’s power and ability to act as we choose from among several alternatives or in any situation away from nature, society and God’s restriction. Humans clearly have free will. But the free will is deprived anytime we are in God’s area which we never understand. Apart from the religious point of view or even from an atheist point of view, no one can clarify everything in between human beings and the world with free will alone.
I believe in free will whenever I see the positive results, and I believe in fate whenever I see the negative consequences. Because my intentions are to always have good results, I surrender to fate if an unexpected result impends to me. I also believe that our free will is at the palm of fate, because we can live only once and this means this is the one road to pave our way even if we choose the wrong way. As things turn out, the one choice of wide range at one time does not mean anything. In retrospect, we already have many reasons and situations for our choices, and the shadow of consequence already covers us. It is fate if the choices turn out the only one way.
Unfortunate happenings always make me a fatalist. A car accident is not a coincidence because it is a natural result of consequential processes biting each other without any errors. Beliefs and expectations of free will occur when I see natural results because there is not a seat for an irresistible force. It is just a result from obvious causes like solving mathematical problems.
Western philosophy is divided into compatibilism and incompatibilism regarding free will. Compatibilism basically accepts both free will and determinism, and incompatibilism supports only one of them. So incompatibilism is divided between determinism and indeterminism. Determinism’s position claims that everything is already settled regardless of human choice. Free will bears implications on religion, ethics, and science. Free will claims God’s omniscient influence in the area of religion, and free will can be based on charging responsibilities in the area of ethics. In the area of science, recognition of free will means that the physical causal relationship cannot solely determine human behavior and spirit.
A priest, Bubjung (1932~2010) in Korea said that our thought that in destiny is to, “Be happy every living things.” Our choices and actions originate from our ideas, and the starting of our fate is our thinking. Time flows only once. Our choice will be a unique way of length which will never be repeated and discarded, and it becomes our fate in a time and a place.
So fate and free will are the same thing with different representations. As an analogy of the vessel, the inside of the bowl is a concave shape but the outside is a convex shape, thus the vessel is concave and also convex. Our lives are in the hands of fate and also free will at the same time. A person who denies destiny never goes over to fate and lives a life being raped and strictly limited from fate. A person who entrusts and is surrendered in fate is given free will which makes his life his own gift. There is no fortuity. Our freedom is the other name of the bridle which determines our fate, and this thesis is all related to the first free write about happiness and freedom.