Fate Versus Free Will

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A newborn baby lies housed in an artificial womb; tubes invade the small fragile body like over grown weeds. The parents weep openly as they watch their precious child lie motionless as it fights for every breath. The tiny machines beep loudly around them as they carefully survey the room counting all the other synthetic wombs that house small bodies. A nurse over hears the desperate parents sorrow as they search for answer to why their child has to suffer." Is it pre-determined fate" the father says, " that our child is destined to die?" The mother stares blankly at her husband; she can see his lips move but cannot comprehend what he is saying, her mind is focused on what she must have done wrong. " How can this be part of our pre- determined fate?" She says as the words of her husband begin to sink in. Both parents set quietly holding hands as they watch their child take its last breath. I ask, was the fate of this baby pre-determined or was it the fate of the parents that were pre-determined.

I argue that in neither case was the fate pre-determined. When it comes to pre-determine fate I am under the impression that there is no room for flexibility when it comes to the outcome, it is what it is, a plan has been set out, and it is unchangeable. When something is pre-determine it has been decided beforehand, ascertained already. However, there is an opposing issue that surrounds this dilemma of pre-determines fate, and that is the issue of free will. I believe that to have free will means that we have the control and power to make choices in our lives. Therefore, if we believe that the fate of this child was pre-determined then we would have to believe that we have no control or powers in our lives. I do not believe that p...

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...ed in it's course is fixed by the nature of the being's life. For the human being's life, what is inevitable, inescapable, and predetermined in its course is that for one's own life to exist it must be sustained and generated by itself.

Destiny has always been locked into a connotation, an idea of something spiritual or ethereal. Something out of our control. My faith stops at the recognition I have for the "gift of my life", my birth. I have to have a wondering faith about that because I -- none of us -- know in an absolute way that is provable. Destiny, in it's literal meaning does not presuppose faith as I recognize it. I have no "blind faith," when it comes to determining the outcome of my life - fulfilling my destiny. If it were meant that we were not to use our capabilities as a human, then we would not have been. If we left it all up to fate then why exist?

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