Does Destiny Control Us?

July 14, 2024

Today’s second reading has this very enigmatic line: “….he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ,…”  This theme of predestination comes up in many places in the Bible. So we have Paul writing in Romans 8:30: “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” which seems to clearly imply  that not all are so predestined.  In another part of the same letter he writes: “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. (Romans 9:18)  suggesting that it is God who decides who should be saved  and who should not, by hardening the hearts of some.  

In our lives too, we have probably often heard people saying ‘What is destined for you will happen’ - or words to that effect, and they  mean this with reference to finding a job or a spouse, with the way children turn out, and a myriad other things in our lives.

But if God has predestined only some to salvation, or if finding a job or a spouse is predestined, or if children are predestined to turn out one way or another, and so on, then is there any point in human beings making any effort  to do good rather than bad, in how we bring up our children, or working towards any other goal we may want to work towards?   

How then can we make sense of this concept of destiny or predestination? There is a famous dictum by Heraclitus, “Character is destiny” that might help us understand this concept of destiny.  What this means is that a person’s future or ‘destiny’ is determined, not by some unknown power, but by their own character or their personality.  This concept is also reflected in a form of psychotherapy called Transactional Analysis, which speaks of Life Scripts that people create for themselves.  In his book ‘Scripts People Live’, psychotherapist Claude Steiner, talks about how we unconsciously develop life plans during early childhood. And these scripts influence our behaviour, our choices and ultimately our destiny. These scripts, almost like a movie script, dictate how we live our lives. So while theoretically it is possible for a person’s life to take any direction, we are most likely going to follow the script we have written for ourselves - unless we choose to step out of what is ‘natural’ to us, step out of the scripts we have created for ourselves, and make different choices.   

This principle that character influences destiny may then help us understand many things that happen in our own lives - rather than ‘dumping’ all our bad experiences on the shoulders of ‘destiny’.  The fact that some people push their way to the top, while others who are equally talented or intelligent do not make it to the same level of worldly success, may, for instance, be due to one person’s character being more ambitious, more determined or more manipulative or because of some other character traits that one has which the other does not have, - and the reason is not some impersonal ‘destiny’.  Similarly, the fact that some are cheated more easily by others, or that some seem to be able to grasp more opportunities while others complain they don’t have opportunities, or that some marriages work and others don’t, and so many other ‘events’ that are the result of human give and take, may often be the result of the ‘character’ of the persons involved, and not some ‘destiny’.  

But how is this character formed?  While our ‘nature’ (or DNA) does influence us to a certain degree, we cannot forget that our character (not so much our innate talents) is very often formed by the way others respond to us, and the way we respond to and interact with our environment.   So the development of our own character is significantly influenced by the choices we make, - and each choice is like a building block that influences the character we are constantly becoming. This also implies that we also have the ability to reflect and change, thus influencing the kind of character we develop into, and hence our destiny.  

In fact, if the theory of evolution is true, then even DNA is influenced by the choices that living entities made as they evolved.  For example, when a particular ‘ape’ ancestor of ours chose to use a stick or a stone as a tool, he or she chose to be different from others around him or her, and gradually we became tool users, then tool makers, and our brains developed along lines quite different from our relatives in the animal world.  So even many parts of our character that we could ascribe to our DNA, were themselves  the result of choices or of the character of our ancestors.  

So, how does one explain the statements in the Bible that seem to support predestination? First of all we must remember that while there are statements in the Bible that on the surface of it support the idea of predestination, there are also numerous other passages that challenge it.  So we find this for example in the first letter of John:  "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance'. (1 John 2:2).   Then there are the various parables (the Prodigal Son, the widow who seeks her lost coin, the good shepherd leaving 99 sheep to search for the one that is lost (Luke 15:1-32) and so on and so forth) which tell us that God is one who will make the extra effort, even abandoning the other ‘faithful’ ones, to seek out those who are lost.  All these seem to strongly challenge an understanding of God as one who  arbitrarily predestines only some to be saved.  Considering that there are these contradictory statements in the New Testament, maybe we can understand the concept of predestination by realising that  while it is always possible to change one’s destiny by making different choices from what our ‘character’ or ‘script’ would allow us to, some of us have written scripts for ourselves that will not allow us to be saved, or to receive mercy or to understand Jesus’ teachings. And in this sense we are destined to a life without salvation.

And as for the rest of our lives whenever we tend to blame  ‘destiny’ to explain and/or to console ourselves, perhaps a look back at our own lives might help us realise that many of the things we attribute to destiny may be attributed to our ‘character’, and the choices we made to become the persons we have become today.  And if that is true, then it is also true that we can always begin to choose differently and change our character, and therefore our ‘destiny’, - so that we can truly make our own the sentiments expressed in W.E. Henley’s poem Invictus: “I am the Master of my Fate, I am the Captain of my soul”.

First Reading: Amos 7: 12-15

Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.” Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’.

Second Reading: Ephesians 1: 3-14

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love  he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,  to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,  in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.  And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,  who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

Gospel: Mark 6: 7-13

Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt.  Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town.  And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” They went out and preached that people should repent.  They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.