Faith Vs. Fatalism: Que Sera, Whatever Will Be !

This world in which all human kind lives in is distorted and filled with sin but we are called to choose to not give in to the sin, to not conform to the work around us and prove our faith is stronger than our sinful desires. God does not control what we choose to do, he may put situations in ones lives that will test ones faith but the person themselves is in control of their fate and what will come from the challenge that lies ahead. Calvin states, “The Lord has still another reason for afflicting his children: to try their patience and to teach them obedience,” (Calvin, 52). God would not try a persons patience or teach them obedience if God knew exactly what would happen, because it is in those trials that he does not know what will

Some of us come to term with the reality that everything in life is temporary, and that one day we will all die. But sometimes people face hard time facing the reality of death because is never easy to accept not breathing one day. Some people fear for a good reason because once someone dies there is no coming back and not knowing what happens in the afterlife makes dying even more painful. The sad thing about dying is that one never knows when they will die, which is why someone people hate thinking about dying because it makes them overthink when they will die. Everyone face the reality of death differently

unfounded joy and a faith in the absence of hope, he is intent on winning the spiritual battle, even if

Do we Love and Listen to God’s Command because we really do love Him or because we fear the consequences?

To an extent, I think that free will is an answer to the questions of God’s existence and why there is still evil in the world. In order to have free will, one must be able to make a choice. A choice between good and evil, right and wrong, or moral and immoral. But another point that is brought up is interesting to me. What about the things that are not one’s choice? Things like cancer and sickness, natural disasters, and ultimately death from things that are out of one’s control. If a all powerful and loving God does exist, why do these things? Our book says “But once one recognizes that a natural order is required for meaningful human freedom, the possibility emerges that human beings might inadvertently get caught in the gears of nature’s mechanism.” Growing up in the christian church, I was taught that everything happens for a reason. Some verses that jump out to me are:

“We have a moral responsibility to disobey any law that conflicts with the law of god.” (Paragraph 16)

door to death”(Wiesel 77).His faith in god’s plans for him kept him going initially , it kept many of the Jews going, when he lost it he gave up his life. With all the brutality around him, his faith remained pure and deflected his pain, but he couldn’t hold on to it above all, like the polish commander said. Faith was more impactful than family and fear, it gave people hope, and abated unnecessary fear.

At his end Morrie came to the realization that death is natural and one should accept this and focus on the essentials, living as if this day was the last. He iterates this in his line “To know you’re going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time… that way you can actually be more involved in your life while you’re living” (Albom 81). Morrie believes that people lived today like they might die tomorrow people will care less about material things and by extent they should be less greedy and kinder. While I can agree with his logic as I follow it, I cannot accept that this would work in reality. This train of thought isn’t common for a reason. The only people I know of who think like Morrie Suggests are reckless people in stories. When I read enough of the Fourth Tuesday this idea made me stop to imagine life like this. Personally, it lead to a train of thought questioning the point of life. Try as I might I had no answer, let alone one as simple as 42. I later realized when writing this line that this is likely why we seem to avoid the topic of death as it brings up too many questions about life that people don’t have answers to. These questions can be dangerous to those with a less stable mindset. This is why I cannot support this chapter in the textbook of Morrie’s final

All living beings promise one thing when they are born and set in existence; that they will live and then after they have exercised their temporal being they sign off to death. The contract of a human being’s life is that it comes with mortality, so we do as much as we can in

This quotation from the movie Forrest Gump pretty much sums up our lives. Our life is full of uncertainty and we will never know what will happen in the future. This uncertainty makes our life amusing as we prepare ourselves to anticipate the unknown future. Likewise, death is unpredictable but inevitable. We may try to prepare against it by trying to stay safe and healthy but no matter what it successfully grips us with its claws. The movie 50/50 depicts a character that is very young and risk averse but suffers from a life threatening illness. After his diagnosis, he is in denial and he feels he has no support.

It is inevitable that we will all die it is a fact that everyone must come to terms with. There comes a time in everyone’s life that they must face death; a friend’s tragic accident, a family member’s passing or their own battles with diseases. When faced with the idea of death people will act in different ways some may find it therapeutic to apologize for the negative they have done, some may want to spend time with loved ones to ease the future pain, and others may decide that their life was not what they believed. The story Death Constant Beyond Love tells us about a man named Senator Sanchez who is living a happy life with his wife and five kids. That is until he is told by doctors that he only has a short time to live. Death is

It's all in the grand scheme of things, just about perspective in all actuality, no one really knows the future but society views everything like we do know what's going to happen, and we work towards completing goals, or achieving things that we set out to do but in all actuality none of it is going to happen as we planed. Say for instance you set out a goal to make a million dollars by the end of 2016, and you have your plan and everything you know what you're going to do , and you do it and by 2016 you have everything you set out to get, but that's it. During the process of getting to your planned out goal you were dead. You were as probably less human than a wooden table, the reason for that is called target fascination. When you wish for things to happen you, and you don't really know who is or, if it is even you who had the original idea to become rich, you don't really know because your mind is combined with other people's perspective and other peoples thoughts so much to the point where you don't even have your own conceptual idea

That God decreed to leave some in the common misery and not to bestow on them living faith and the grace of conversion. Calvin also believes that God predestined everything for everything that it does, such that God predestined me to be writing this report right now for my religion class, so that this isn't my own free will but it was God's set plan for me. Zanchius, a Reform Theologian, writes that there is most certainly a double predestination and gives passages to prove through God's Word that there is no other way. II Cor. 4:3 "If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing." I Peter 2:8 "They stumble because they disobey the message-which is also what they were destined for." II Peter 2:12b "…They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish." Jude 1:4a "For certain men who were marked out for condemnation long ago have secretly slipped among you." He concludes his arguments by saying that God could not erase a name that has been placed in the book of life or add a name because it was from eternity. He quotes Luther with, "This is the very thing that razes the doctrine of free-will from its foundation, to wit, that God's eternal love of some men and hatred of others is immutable and cannot be reversed."

So we can see that the Bible questions the ability of humans to control their own destiny.

All of this considered, how does this benefit God? If we make a chart with God at the top, and follow it down through all His creations capable of free will, then we would come to three different groupings capable of free will. These are the angels of heaven, the fallen angels, and humanity. God is the Father,