Do predestination and free choice cancel each other out?

Question:Narrow minded views need not respond. Note: this is intended as a philosophical question--not a religious one.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Narrow minded views need not respond. Note: this is intended as a philosophical question--not a religious one.

Not necessarily.
Consider the thought that, while you HAVE to get to the predestination, the choice of HOW to get there is entirely yours.

if they cancel each other out, what is left??
Free choice is just an illusion, everything is predestined. You may not know it and you may think you have free choice, but the best answer to this question have already been determined and you will choose the best answer that was predestined to be the best answer.

I should think so

There is no "predestination" only a probability based on Free choices made.

I think they would however i am not a believer in predetermination. There would have to be a predeterminer who chooses our fate. If their is one it would ruin the very purpose of our existence which is to see what choices we make. It may be possible to see into the future and see what our choices would be. But I doubt anyone or anything is predetermining our individual actions.

If each is taken to cover all of humanity, then they would be mutually exclusive.

One might believe, however, that some few are predestined to something or other because of their gifts, talents, proclivities, prior service, etc., while everyone else is left to seek his own level of comfort in whatever endeavor.

If I might apply it to a religious example, one good way to offend people is to have an opinion as to whether Jesus Christ was peccable (i.e., could he have sinned if he had chosen? Did he have moral agency or a choice in the matter of his righteousness?). If you believe that he (or anyone else) was predestined to be righteous, does that violate his moral agency and will?

Predestination appears to prevent proper exercise of agency. Free will appears to be able to preempt predestination. It might be an unstoppable force/immovable object conundrum. It might not be possible for both to exist.

maybe to an extent. i like to think that predestination (in the big picture) is altered by your free will. depending on what you do in your life, you will be destined for different things. you have a choice in life in how you want to lead it and where you want to go with it. there are also things that some people were not meant to do. by your free will, you choose a specific path, but it doesn't always work out, to me that means you were never meant to have that. eventually you find yourself in the right place.

I don't think so.

They each serve their purpose and I think they compliment and work with each other.

Predestination works up to a certain point, and then free will brings in different possible outcomes and scenarios; details, if you will.
However, I do believe that predestination determines the final outcome as much as free will.

Fun question!

Isn't predestination a religious concept?
They really can coexist, because the one who predestines exists beyond and therefore is not affected by spacetime. He can predestine because He already knows what your choices in time 'will' be.

Not unless you choose to follow a different path. But of course, it can be argued that even this choice was predestined.

Your question is difficult to answer because you are describing a cycle because the key word is 'destination'. If a person's destination is already predetermine, then they cannot choose the destination. On the other hand, if a person can choose their destination, then their destination is not predetermined. Unless, you believe one way or the other, there really isn't an answer to this question.

no, but free choice can delay the destination

They are the pefect complement to each other, the path i walk is set the way i walk it is free.

the one does not work against the other - there's no contradction whatsoever!

Lucretius had the right idea to reconcile will with cause-and-effect, expressed in "The Nature of Things". That atoms always "fall" ( cause-and effect) , we cannot help, and we "fall" like everything else. But we can "wiggle" on our way down (make small 'free' choices), which in a complex world of googol quadrillions of atoms and entities, can make a big difference somewhere down the road . (My own "Butterfly Effect" add-on, which Roman poet /philosopher Lucretius [an Epicurean like Democritus] didn't know about. )
Otherwise, in ordinary gross Newtonian logic, predestination is the contradictory OPPOSITE of free choice/will.

No they do not. Predestination is one of many paths that a person has to move along in there live. You just have the choice n which path you will move.

Predestination is a word that is used by the religious community. So, what some would say is predestined is really for knowledge of an out come of a particular view.

If you learn more your views change and you change paths.
If you are unwilling to learn then yes, you can say that your path is predestined.

Look at it kinda like this. If a person is in a bad relationship, knows that it's bad and stays in it anyway, then wouldn't you say that that is predestined by THEIR own actions. But, that person learns that they deserved better and leaves that then makes it FREE choice.

At least it is a possible theory to think about. Don't you think?

that is ovious as the ovious previous dious question you oviouslly did to oviouslly see who was oviouslly falling at sleep.