Free Will & Destiny
Complete free will is an impossible idea; mainly because complete free will necessitates that we have infinite and unlimited options available for us to choose from at any given moment. While some people have more available options than others do, we are all always restricted in some way, in our choices, and the more choices we make the more choices are opened up to us but also the more choices are closed to us. However that’s not a bad thing, as having those infinite choices readily available at all times would be overwhelming and paralysing.
What we do have is a limited set of options available at each moment, cards dealt to us, and based on each choice we make the cards in our hand change and adapt. With each choice new consequences, and events unfold. This means that the question really isn’t about whether we have free will, but instead whether or not destiny exists. In that question there are three distinct possibilities:
A. Destiny does not exist and the cards we are dealt are completely by random chance, and the choices we make completely our own, therefore the possible results are infinite.
B. Destiny does exist but we choose how to play the cards we are dealt
C. Destiny does exist and our decisions beyond our control
The third possibility is the least likely in my opinion. The idea of our decisions being completely beyond our control is a concept that takes away accountability of actions and it implies that no one should be held responsible for their behaviour because it was not their choice.
The first option is a very realistic possibility, however the one I want to focus on is the second option. Destiny exists but we choose how to play the cards we are dealt.
We must assume a greater force that exists, for the sake of the argument, and that the cards we are dealt are strategically given to us, with purpose and intentionality. This would mean that this greater force gives each one of us a set of choices at every given moment, specifically tailored to who we are. In the process knowing what choice we would want to make in each situation and the subsequent choices that would result from this choice.
In this way we are dealt a strategic hand, tailored exactly right so we would make the choices which would result in a sequence of events and more choices that would lead us exactly towards what is destined to happen. Thus, we are responsible for every choice we make at every given moment, because it is completely and unequivocally our choice. However the choices we will make are inevitable and thus the results are guaranteed. Moreover our choices are intertwined with each other, sometimes cards are played by others which impact the cards we have, and the choices we can make. The cards dealt to others are also predestined in the sense that they were given those specific options in order to make that choice. As such inferring that what happened was meant to happen in order to direct our decisions in a specific direction. Our choices then also influence others and their choices and so on.
Zooming out into a greater picture, all of these choices act and interact with each other creating a road tailored for each and every one of us. In each road our destiny, built from the choices we make individually and collectively. Each of our destinies intertwine with each other creating a greater sequence of events that impacts the world on a larger scale, those events then trickle down into the lives of others and the cards they are dealt, impacting their choices and their destinies and so on.