The following was written as a problem set for my Honors 296 class, a class that focuses on the differences between the quantum world and the Newtonian world and how that is interpreted in our every day lives. I think. I'm not really sure, most of the stuff goes pretty far over my head, so I spend a fairly large amount of time waiting for 1:00, when the girl that sits behind me and Emily starts eating every day. But, I got a pretty good grade on this paper, so I guess I know what I'm talking about. Kind of.
Free will and determinism are logically incompatible. It seems impossible to state that it's probable for individuals to be both in line with a divine plan as well as make their own choices and have free will because they are so different.
Determinism and free will are direct opposites of each other. While the scientific determinism theories state that there are no unreasonable truths or reliance on skepticism, which rules out the possibility of miracles, religion and faith take a different approach. For people who have faith in religion, they believe that there are some truths that are above reason. These two views differ greatly, yet there is the possibility that they are able to be combined into a world where there is both a divine plan and free will.
Religion was a direct influence to the beginning of science. In fact, in the 1660s, when science started to make breakthroughs, the people running the labs and coming up with ideas were religious men. This proves that two things that shouldn't necessarily belong together, like religion and science, actually do, which serves as a jumping point for free will and determinism to correlate.
When I was younger, I actually remember asking my mom this same question, about how free will and determinism could exist (although not phrased so elegantly). I asked my mom what the point of deciding to play tag was if God already had His plan for me to play tag or not: if He'd already made the decision, what do I get to decide?
I will never forget how my mom responded to me. She explained that yes, God has a plan of what He wants you to do in your life, but within that plan, we have choices. God's set up the way he wants us to live and, if we follow the right paths and make the right choices, our lives will end up synced with his master plan. God knows what He wants us to do, but it's up to us to use our own free will to make the choices that will coincide with His determinism.
We live in a Newtonian world. We abide by Newtonian rules and laws every day, but underneath the surface, there is still the quantum level. In the quantum level, things don't necessarily appear as they truly are. There could be an alternative universe where an individual has made every good decision that God originally had prescribed for them and, in that sense, they would be following God's Will exactly. In another quantum universe, that same person could have made every bad decision. We live in a Newtonian world under the same rules, but whichever plane we are on in relation to God's master plan depends on our choices throughout our lives.
God does have a plan for all of us, but it's up to us to choose our path to get there. He realizes that it's not likely that we will follow His exact plan, but He's put it there for us, so that at no matter how low we are in our lives, we'll be able to have the choice to pick ourselves back up and becoming realigned with His determined will.