I have had some people ask me how does one reconcile the seemingly conflicting views that God has a plan for us while we, as people, have free will and can choose to do whatever it is we want to do with our lives.
When it comes to faith related issues, there are many questions that we could spend a considerable amount of time exploring such as: why do bad things happen to good people, why is there war, why is there sickness…? However, in the instant case, there does seem to be a considerable conflict between the two ideas in question.
First, how do we really know that God does have a plan for us?
Jeremiah 29:11 gives us this insight: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Now this sounds like a really good plan and one that I want to be a part of. But is this plan one that will be carried out by God and unfold before us without us having to do anything? Do we just sit back and wait for good things to happen for us?
Even though God wants great things for us, it is up to us to take the first steps to realizing the benefits of his plan. God may give us an initial push in the right direction but after that we are free to choose our own course. It is up to us to live up to our side of the plan.
What is our side of the plan? What does God want from us and how does He want us to act?
There are many areas of the bible that we can look to and see how God wants us to hold up our side of His plan but one of the more pointed areas is in Micah 6:8 where we are told: He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
God has given us His ten commandments which basically tell us to lead a morally pure life. He has asked us to take care of our fellow man and keep Him foremost in our lives.
Even though God has asked these things of us, God does not control every aspect of our lives. We do have free will and we have the ability to exercise that free will. With that ability, when we chose to exercise our free will, we must also live with the consequences even if those consequences can be hurtful to us and those around us.
Take for example Adam and Eve. God gave them the Garden of Eden to care for. His only command to them was to not eat from a specific tree in the garden. After telling them this, He did not take away their ability to eat from the tree. Adam and Eve were free to choose their own actions. And, through exercising their free will, the action they chose was to eat from the forbidden tree.
Adam and Eve used their free will and deviated from God’s plan. Eating the forbidden fruit had significant consequences not only for Adam and Eve but for all that came after them.
Man’s free will is not inconsistent with God’s plan for us. Even though man’s free will can cause conflict with God’s plan, our free will and our ability to choose is a gift from God. It is up to us to use this gift wisely or not. Even though we may stray from the path that God has for us, God will always be there for us to help us find our own way back and realize all of the good things he has in store for us.
Very good !
Thanks Jayme…
Hi Elmer,
While reading this particular article I couldn’t help but wonder what was God’s plan for that young woman killed at Yale? I know it was the killer’s will to kill her, but why? Why does such a wonderful young person have to die just because some jerk thinks it’s his right to do so?
I know. It’s difficult to comprehend. Have you read the artilce about our friend who was killed? It’s called “grieving for a friend.” It deals with the same issues…
This did not satisfy the answer of free will vs God’s plan for us. God is omniscient and therefore knows all. He is able to see into the distant, as well as recent, past and future. God has an overall plan which we all play a role in, while fulfilling the plan he has for each of us on an individual basis. God gave us free will to choose and make a decision, that is completely of our own accord, whenever the occasion arises . Once we have lived to our time, and pass on from this life, you can bet that we fulfilled the plan God had laid out for us (Proverbs 16:4) “The Lord has made everything for his own ends, even the wicked for the evil day.” If we all inevitably fill the roles that God has set for us, how could we have at any point in our lives possibly deviated to a point where we did not fulfill the role? Saying that someone did not fulfill the role God put them here for is like saying God was incapable of seeing into that person’s future, and further still was incapable of planning for their failure. I propose that God’s plan for all of us is fulfilled in each and every one of us. From the lowliest to the highest, despicable to the righteous, I believe that God planned for all of it. Our world today would not be the same place without some of God’s major plans coming to completion. Far be it for any one of us to say that a part of God’s plan is unrighteous or evil, for not a single person alive is able to see the far reaching effects of any event. Some seemingly terrible occurrences in our history have lead to greater goods, and a furthering of God’s plan for all of humanity. We will never know in our human cognizance what it is God has intended for us. We may have free will to choose different paths on how we eventually arrive at the end result God had planned for us, but I don’t know if you can consider it free will when we will ultimately live our lives to the effect that God wanted us to.
Ben, I posterd exactly the same argument and guess what, they deleted my question as if it does not exist. Yours is next, don’t ever expect them to answer you.
God does give free will and with the free will is the presence of God within us. Jesus knew free will but devoted all his will to serving God the Father, so becoming one with the Father. In each being is the gift of the seed of God, free will is the the gift of creation from the creator. The product of our free will is our overall product as people. To grow and bear the flowers of faith first we have to question why until we can question no more and then we have to know faith if we are to be shown the answers. We are God but we are human and not divine, but to be divine we must first recognise that we are human and then and only then can we truly begin the search for God and consciously choose to make our free will a tool for the will of God? Why? How? No human mind can answer this practically because of the divine nature of faith. Faith is not an idea, it is a lifestyle that abandons the realms of humanism for the divine (Higher Levels) of life.
That sounds a bit confusing so I’ll try to sum up better here….Human beings have God within them, and choice (free will) is the seed of God. How we grow with that free will (gift) depends on if we can first recognise it as a gift and by so doing then question the why behind it. Once we begin to truly question we begin to search for the Divine within us and once we accept the fact of it’s existence (God within us) then we have to also accept that we cannot explain it properly and so therefore have to trust it’s reason (faith). Or reject it’s reason (choice), which by the very ability to be able to do so ironically confirms the gift of God each of us is given (free will-choice). Which then leaves the question of faith. Faith is the choice to let your ability to choose unpremeditated choice. (I am getting confusing again-sorry!) O.k. this last bit on Faith.
Faith is the ultimate choice you can choose which basically means making no conscious choice at all but instead believing in the choice that is already made for you by God. But it is a one way ticket because to hear God’s choices for you, you have to choose God before everything else and that is the ultimate choice for your own choice (free will)
When did Eve eat an apple?
I know she ate “fruit” from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but not from an apple tree.
Please don’t mislead people.
Thanks,
Jason G
On the question of how does one reconcile God’s plans for our lives versus free will of our own.
I think when we first were conceived and perhaps even before, God did have a plan for our lives and that plan was for an everlasting life after our life here on earth. He showed us through Jesus as son of man who we should study, the Holy Bible which is His Word which we should read, the Holy Spirit which we must allow to abide within us, and prayer which we should do often as the blueprint for his Plan. Satan on the other hand is at work here on earth to tempt us to choose a different path as he did to Eve in the Garden of Eden. She chose to listen to Satan rather than God and we have been paying for it ever since. It is God’s plan that all of us should be with him in paradise forever and He has showed and told us what we must do to get there. Meanwhile, Satan is at work here on earth to tempt us to follow his path and therein lays the free choice each of us has. Live a life here on earth and die or live a life here on earth and have eternal life after our physical death here on earth.
In summary, it is God’s Plan that each of us lives an everlasting life with him and that Plan is for us to choose, right up to the day we die our earthly death. Of course that is when our choice dies as well. That is my thought on God’s Plan versus our free will.
This has been a question for years. We would love to believe that we actually have “free will”, to choose our own path, make our own decisions in life. But to truly believe man has ” free will” is to not believe in God or believe who he says he is. God either knows all things, or he doesn’t. God is either the creator of all things or he isn’t. Doesn’t Romans give us insight into God’s plan? 9:11…. For the children not yet being born having done any good or evil the purpose of God according to the election might stand. Before we were born, God knew us and planned our lives. Aren’t t the very hairs on our head numbered. If God knows the day and the hour of our first and last breath do we really think he wouldn’t know every step and decision we will make on earth? We either believe God created and planned everything and he is almighty or we don’t. We cant think God has a plan but we in some way can choose our own path or alter it because then God could be caught off guard or worse, disappointed that we didn’t go His way. There is no middle ground. We need to believe God created all things for His purpose- good and bad. Romans 9:15-23 tell at God will have mercy on whom he will, God raised up Pharaoh, a horrible leader, so that He (God) might show His power. God has mercy on whom he will have mercy and on whom he will hardeneth. Who are we to question the mind of the Lord. Hath not the potter power over the clay to make one vessel unto honor and the other unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show HIS wrath and to make HIS power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, Why has thou made me thus? These are God’s words not mine. It seems as if we have free will. We come to a stop sign and we go right or left however to truly believe God planned our lives, we must believe the direction “we” chose had been preplanned. Sometimes it is to get us from point A to point B. Only God knows and I for one look. As I look back on my life…. All the wrong decisions “I” made and love to see God’s hand in each one of them. I am where I am in my life because of Him. I love believing in a God that has my life planned out and I love not knowing that plan. This too is by design. My will IS God’s will.
I really appreciate the relationship of freewill and god’s plan for us. Before I’m always asking the plan of God for me to show it to me via dream because I really need to know before I will take a step. But upon reading this article, I was able to open up my heart and mind then I need to start searching for God’s plan for me. I need then to understand the situation where i belong so that I will be able to know God’s plan for me..
In all,God is great.All we need is Grace and the leading of the Spirit. Thanks all,it was all encouraging
I had an essay going, but decided to cut it short. Lol we will see.
The problem with this question, is that it stems from human logic, understanding and reasoning, which as we know is incomprehensibly smaller and inferior to the Creator of this universe. Let’s take a step back and just look at how amazing our universe is. I want to mention a few things, just to remind us of how intelligent and powerful God really is.
We have all heard of the Big Bang. What a lot of people do not know is that during the initial big bang, there were certain properties or constants which if they were altered or were not even there, planets, stars would not form and ultimately life would not exist. Among these are the rate of expansion of the universe, which by the way is just fast enough to have allowed life to evolve on earth, but not too slow that the universe it would ever contract. The latter fact is proof that our universe is NOT eternal and must have had a definite beginning – more proof for the existence of a creator. The other constants are things like gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces which if the measurement of any of those were altered by a hairs breadth, life as we know it would not exist. AND THESE ARE ALL VALUES PRESENT AT THE TIME OF THE BIG BANG. Amazing. Then there are many other factors which work together with these universal constants, allowing complex life on earth to evolve or exist. The size of the earth, the size of the sun, the size of the moon, the distance from the earth to the moon, the distance from the earth to the sun, the size of the earth’s crust. Also if any of these were altered, life would not exist. And most amazing of all, all these factors and independent but work in accordance with the universal constants (gravity, electromagnetism etc). to allow life to exist. Truly amazing. Do you know that the earth is the only planet in our solar system that has an elliptical orbit? Funny how the only planet with an elliptical orbit, would be just far away enough from the sun to permit life! More proof of a creator and intelligence. These things I mentioned are just scraping the surface of how intelligent, powerful and amazing our Creator is. Look at the cell, an absolute marvel. Thousands of nanomachines carrying out and completing their various tasks. The code is DNA instructs them what to do and when. Where did this intelligent code come from? The engineer of course – God.
So we can see we are dealing with a mind boggling, super intelligent, super powerful Creator of the universe here.
So then how can we question such a being when it comes to evil in the world, suffering, free will and His ultimate plan? Who are we really to challenge his authority and sovereignty? Humans are simply far to inferior, our logic and reasoning is completely incomparable to God’s. It says in the Bible, that the wisdom of man of the foolishness of God. And that I’m guessing is putting it mildly.
What I’m trying to say is, why is it impossible for free will and an ultimate plan for us to exist simultaneously? This is God we are talking about, the creator of the freaking universe. Humans still have free will, we make choices everyday by ourselves. Just because all our choices eventually have the outcome of God’s plan which was in place before he created the universe, that does not mean in any way that free will is mind control. We still have that freedom, and that is what matters. The ultimate plan, is part of God’s sovereignty, and part of the logic, reasoning and abilities HUMANS JUST DO NOT POSSESS. It is futile to try and apply human logic and reasoning to God, simply because God’s ways are above ours. Free will and God’s ultimate plan do exist together, simply because it was God who made it so and who makes it possible.
So people, stop trying to put God in a box. Just have faith and realize all things happen for a reason, in and outside of our control. Just live a morally good life, put God first, love fellow human beings, treat everyone with love and respect. If you are ill treated, turn the other cheek and realize the wicked will have whats coming to them. All we need to realize is a) God is far more powerful, intelligent and sovereign than us. He can see the whole puzzle where as humanity can only see part of a piece. b.) God created us for a purpose – creation in itself is a purposeful act. c) God loves us – He sent Jesus to die the most excrutiating pain, both physically and spiritually so that we could be reunited with Him when we die. d.) Life on earth is short, a mere flicker next to eternity. A mere blink of the eye against eternal life. The suffering we endure on earth in this time, HAS NOTHING on eternal life in paradise. It has absolutely nothing of the good life we are promised after death on earth, but is needed I believe to perhaps understand it all once we pass into the next life.
So keep the faith and realize the creator of the universe has your back. Those who reject God, it is their choice. God has not rejected Himself on their behalf. It is written on the heart of every man that God is real and exists. They HAVE NO EXCUSE. Science itself compliments our Creator, as I have merely touched upon earlier.
God bless and have FAITH
God gave us free will as he did the plan of salvation. You may choose not to believe in him and turn your back and go the other way…..That is not God’s plan for us….he wants us to live with him forever in heaven….we belong to him as he created us. Because he is a fair and just God, he gives us the choice….but does warn us about taking the wrong way and what will happen. If one tries to live a life without him and follow free will consistently, then their life will not be abdundant with the love of God and most likely be selfish and self-centered. Gods plan is for us to be with him after our death here on earth….just because that is his plan, doesnt mean it will be if we make the wrong choices. Of course he knows when our death is as he knows all…..dont really think he actually causes our death to happen……It is because of the choices we make that affect how our life goes and even perhaps our death.
GOOD JOB Jay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! exactly what I needed after the philosophy lecturers. God Bless.
How gullible can you people be? You can’t have both free will and have an all powerfull “god” that already has everything planned out an knows exactly what we are going to do. God does not exist, you believe because you have been brought up to, just like people in Muslium countrys believe Muhammad is the prophet or how the Greeks believed in Apollo and the like. I’m sure no one here thinks that Zeus is a real god and there is no difference, every religon thinks theres is the correct one. Grow up stop believing in fairytales.
Without God, I can’t. Without me, God won’t.
if you believe in god then god bless you,if you dont your choice its simple as that, we all will die any way when, we dont know its how we live our life that matters,half of the population is either taking drugs smoke drink which will have a impact on our health, you should think of them who as cancer and still live a healthy life style think of the people with no food or water share a thought to them, the world is messed up by our goverment who as the money but wont go out there and save the children who is in poverty,feed them give them clean water god can only do so much its down to us to save our lifes but we can still love and believe in god.so please get to know him before you pass any judgement what goes around will defo come back round.
Thank you all for confirming my disbelief in God being so wonderful and great. With all of this lack of clarity it is clear his plan includes disorder amongst you all, and for you all to segregate yourselves over these matters. So much of God lacks clarity or prudent plans or will. The story of Noah shows Gods poor planning as he had to destroy most all people on the planet because he made an error. This story also teaches my children to use violence to solve problems, after all that is what God has done. God has a plan and we humans have no free will, and if we try to have free will God will kill us all with a flood to cover up his mistake. But God doesn’t make mistakes so killing all of the world with water was done out of love? If God loves us, he has a very funny way of showing it. Like a father that tortures his children with cancer, war, poverty, rape, murder, and then writes them a letter expressing his love for them? Very few people choose suffering, so that is not part of free will, that is God’s plan. God does nothing to show greatness, only his power and ability to confuse us. God is in charge and has a plan and he has no love for us. We are tools to him and we know not what we do for him. Intelectualizing about it does not change what is so apparent in the world. Stop reading the bible for a moment and look around the world and ask yourself if God really is about love and greatness? He has a plan, but it is not to our benifit and we have no free will to change it.
So many of you fighting about one wrong word someone said weather it was fruit or an Apple! Trying to post rude comments to the author because you don’t agree?! Seriously, the point is to help spread God’s word if you have a thought on the question between God’s will and free will then answer. Help others to understand, but don’t rag on each other like hateful petty people who have never once read the bible or spent one moment alone with the holy spirit!! This is truly a planet ruled by evil! Smh… You have people turned away from God by reading this because you do nothing but argue. I believe free will is basically only used to choose between God and the devil. If we choose God and become saved we will still need to take up our cross daily and use our free will to continue to choose God over the devil. This choice becomes easier every time you make it because God’s power of his holy spirit is stronger in you. This is from studying his word daily every time we choose to obey God and fight against the devil we are being further filled with peace, knowledge, and understanding. The devil brings evil because he rules this planet and through those of us who chose God, God fights back! So act like a solider in God’s great army!
What the devil means for harm God uses for his glory and he does so through us! When we use our free will to chose him. Adam and eve had only one choice to make, obey God or fall for the devil’s tricks. So do we.
Jay potter. The answers to your questions lie in the bible. John 20:24-27 says if you ask God to show himself to you he will. You will need to look for God in yourself because that is where he is not in reading random things in the internet. God is good, but the answers to all the questions you have can’t be answered in one minute. If you do not want to see God and you live only by the flesh than you won’t trust or believe any answer anyway. It sounds like God has tried to call you before because of your curiosity, maybe you should use your free will to chose God. Open yourself to him and call upon him and he will show himself to you. If you really have questions you want answered he will do that to. I will be praying for you. ❤
But what about the fact that God is all knowing? Does it really make sense to say that God has a plan for those who he already knows will use free will to deviate from the plan? Would that make the plan void from the inception? Like with the Adam and Eve example I’ve heard people say that God meant/intended/planned for them to live in paradise eternally. But didn’t God know man would disobey Him even before creating man? How does it make sense to say He planned otherwise? Also people God created a beautiful angel and didn’t directly create Satan. But of course God knew the angel would become Satan. The concepts of making plans that can be deviated from due to free will doesn’t make sense for an all knowing being.
Very beautiful Jereca, on Aug 20th, 2014… Please pray for me, to recognize the guidance put before me… I’ve been praying and praying for patience and guidance, then suddenly, after years, I come to the thought, that it is already inside me, I’m just having trouble recognizing, accepting and applying my amazing gifts!!! Thank You and God bless!!!
Dear author,
I am not sure if you’re theologically trained but your use of Jeremiah 29:11 is incorrect and has no exegetical basis. The promise in Jeremiah 29:11 is specifically for the Jews in Babylon who were about to face seventy years in exile. By using that specific verse to show God has a plan for us (believers today), you are undertaking in eisegesis
I am not saying that God does not have a plan for us (far from that because He is sovereign, gracious, all knowing, etc). What I am saying is you must be careful whenever you quote Scripture. Engage in responsible exegesis before coming up with exposition of bible verses
I seldom leave a response, however i did a few searching
and wound up here God’s Plan For Us versus Man’s Free Will | The Whisper of God.
And I do have a couple of questions for you if it’s allright.
Could it be only me or does it appear like some of the responses come across like they are written by brain dead individuals?
😛 And, if you are posting on additional online sites, I
would like to follow everything new you have to post. Would you make a list of every one of all your
shared sites like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin profile?
“God, being all-powerful, can change his mind. But if he does, then he did not know the future in the first place. If he truly knows the future, then the future is fixed and not even God can change it. If he changes his mind anyway, then his knowledge was limited. You can’t have it both ways: no being can be omniscient and omnipotent at the same time.”
Can you please give me something so I can argue this point?
@ jereca It is God’s will, he decided that we argue. We have nothing to do with it. We are following orders. He knew when he created us that we would be doing it. Can’t have it both ways.
@Anne Don’t think just follow the flock and donate. The only thing religion hates more than not making money is when people question things. In real life, he who does more bad things give more to the church. You go to that room and ask for forgiveness and it’s done. You are all set until you do it again and again again. As long as you keep giving and ask for forgiveness, you are all set.
The Pope came to Philadelphia using a chartered plane while millions of people around the world are starved to death. Yeah and he is supposed to be the leader. It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Religions are man made cockamamie idea to control the masses using fear. That’s about all it is good for. Nothing ever invented by being inside a church or a mosque or a mandir, nothing good for mankind ever come out of a holy building. None, nada and nothing ever will.
Think about how sick this is:
According to the Standard Model of God, God is an omniscient, all-powerful, all-loving being who answers prayers. Imagine God sitting on his magnificent throne in heaven looking down upon Earth, seeing every detail. God speaks:
“Look at all of those praying people getting tortured in that death camp. Excellent! I won’t do anything to stop that. And look at that little girl down there being raped and murdered. Perfect! She is praying like mad, and so is her mother, but I won’t do anything to stop that. And there are three terrorists preparing to blow up a church and kill 1,500 people who are saying the Lord’s Prayer to me right now. Outstanding! I won’t do anything to stop that. How wonderful it is that 1,000 prayerful people will die of starvation today in Ethiopia. I love it! I won’t do anything to stop that. Oh… and there’s little Suzy Jankins praying that I remove that pimple from her nose for her big date with Chad tomorrow. Let me go help Suzy right now…”
Don’t question anything, just keep on buying the BS they are selling. By the way this goes for all the religions.
@Friq Rah That is not how it works. God has a plan and He knows what is going to happen, no exceptions. Your examples do not make any sense because for all we know, it could have been the Devil that caused this particular method of transportation to be selected. The Devil’s role is to sow doubt and you are in doubt. You are doing Satan’s work without even realizing it, which too is one of Satan’s tools of the trade: take advantage of those who ignore Lord’s warnings about Satan using doubt to manipulate its victims.
If god knew every hair on our heads, before we were ever created, knew our destiny, how can one say we have free will if the Lord knew what we were going to do Anyways, that’s not free will. I have the freewill to grab the life raft, or drown put never had the free will to be thrown on the water, answer me this, if god knew I was going to be good or evil, and created me anyway, how is that freewill
To my brothers and sisters who’ve woken up congratulations to those who still believe there’s a god and he has a master plan answer this
Let’s say you made the decision to rob a bank and the heist fails and you end up doing jail time for 10-15yrs do you Accredit that to free will or gods plan. Most of you believers will say since I made the choice then it was my free will and that’s cool; but let’s say while in jail you develop an idea for an app that made you a billionaire when you get out… All you believes would go tell your testimony and accredit it to GOD cause your all fake and only accredit god with the good in your life And you do this so you never truly have to take responsibility for your own actions cause if you can pin everything on a god then it’s never your fault and that’s lazy,careless,weak, insecure,manipulative, inconsistent thinking
Thank you for reminding me
In reference to Jay, May 16, 2012 at 5:53 am:
Yours is the best explanation in this whole discussion – at least in my opinion (and we all have one, don’t we). It is the very power of God beyond our ability to understand that makes all our quibbling exactly the free will the God blesses us with. I suggest that God created Earth as a place for His man creation and placed within them the DNA that has God’s stamp on it. Within this design is the need to understand the Creator. And God wanted man to want Him – not as a puppet but as a loving son or daughter – and thus the need for free will. But God is powerful enough that every time we make a decision He is at work in His creation, weaving the threads of the future so that His ultimate will is accomplished. Thus, I believe in a God who is so big that he could relinquish control over our decision making process and allow us to be truly tempted just as Jesus was. And yes, we – and others – may suffer for our decisions, but God is still in control and will have the ultimate victory.