Is it destiny which controls our lives or free will?

Question

If the answer is free will, then those in favour of fate or destiny would say that "you may think you did it but it was pre destined...even your mind and will was set to work in a certain way at a certain time...causing the particular action or event .

Answer 1

I believe there are both destiny or karma, as I would like to call it, and free-will. Destiny is the force of the sum total of your karma or predilection arising out of your prior actions in previous existence. Free-will is your individual endeavours to get past the former. Which one will prevail, depends on the force of the either. However, there is what is called 'grace' of God, which can negate or overrule destiny and free-will. God is the one, who endowed the principles of destiny and free-will and you play within the ambit the rules framed by the creator. He in the normal course, does not interfere with the course of destiny and the individuals perseverance to get past the force of destiny. But, in deserving cases, out of love for a simple and pious person's craving, He may yield to relax the rules.

Answer 2

I say free will. Because even it it is pre-destined to happen it is only going to happen because you chose it to. If you were going to choose otherwise a different thing would happen but you make the choice ^_^  

Answer 3

This is a logical fallacy called retrospective determinism which says that just because something happened, it was bound to happen.  Prove it.  

Answer 4

If you start thinking about it too much it just becomes a "chicken or the egg" type of pondering.  All of our actions have consequences - we can control our actions, but we can also say the results were destined.

Answer 5

If there is a freewill, then it is more of a responsibility to make a choice than a power to shape up the outcome. Moreover, many a times I find that I can not understand in retrospect why I made a certain choice at a point in time.... it seems as though the choice too was made by me under the influence of some unknown factors. Is the freewill then not so free? This seems a very credible argument as you have pointed out.

On the other hand, it seems perfectly possible that everything that happens, including the choices that we think we have made, may well be simply links in a grand complex chain of cause and effect that is set off right in the Beginning and is simply unfolding following its own logical sequence and equation of cause and effect.

Indeed there is no clear answer. Religion, however, would insist on the primacy of freewill, because it wants us to feel responsible without which it can not guide us into the 'preferred' route of life as it advocates...... the net result of this however is less of satisfaction and more of a sense of guilt that keeps plaguing us.

Answer 6

Does it matter all that much?

As long as you wind up somewhere as a result of your

own choices, what does it matter if they were predictable?

Answer 7

ofcourse is free will destiny is just and outcome of ur free will

free will + actions(which is the same) = destiny

.... and u cant change ur future cause u dont know it ........look lets say that u say that tomorrow ur  goin to the park so u want to change ur future and not go to the park well and u say u change the future .....well the future never changes is the same ...so today u said that ur not going to the park  tomorrow right..well yesterday ur future was that ur were going to think about not going to the park tomorrow and the future is that ur not going to the park well u didnt change anything its complicate if u think about it to much ..

future = present * actions

Answer 8

A false dichotomy.  There are for humans both components of "ability to make choice" and "preceeding conditions causing destiny."

"Man, Master of His Destiny," O. M. Aivanhov.

"The Path of the Higher Self," Mark Prophet.

"Expecting Adam," Martha Beck.

"The Great Divorce," C. S. Lewis, and

"The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?", Free and Wilcock.

Answer 9

free will im writing this and you asked that question was there some guide that told you to ask that if we even question it doesnt that answer the quetion in itself, if it were pre destined we would have no ideas of what free will was

Answer 10

what if... it was the free will to make your destiny? like you could have multiple destinies but it all depends on the decisions you make.

obviously one who chooses the road to drugs isn'tt going to be successful. but what if he instead chose to go to school? then he could end up successful.

it gets more complicated than that but that's basically how i see it. you make this choice then this opens up to another web of choices whice leads to another. our destiny is to make choices i guess.

Answer 11

Heard that question before, and the best answer I've come up with (so far) is that you control your fate, but not your destiny.  And isn't life about the journey and not the end?  Most people think that there are only two courses open to them.  Left or right.  Good or bad.  But the reality is much more complicated.  Example.  You get to a 4 way crossing, The road sign is lying somewhere in the veld. How many options do you have?  (10 bad, 15 good, 20 super, 28 fantastic.)

Peace.

Answer 12

i think we make our own way in life and our decisions are what shape our destiny.

i also really believe in karma, so if we do good, good will be done to us etc.

Answer 13

Is this a free will vs. determinism? One vote for determinism here.

Answer 14

freewill...

but Shakespeare would argue  

Answer 15

there are certainly things that happen that we can not control, life changing events, we can however choose how we deal with them...

my view is that 'destiny' drives us through life, but it's up to us to steer.

Answer 16

Destiny doesn't control you're destination.

Its kind of a choice.