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This past week presented two interesting questions. On the surface they seemed completely unrelated, but as I thought about my answers, they led me down the same philosophical path.

The first question was:

Do you think everything happens for a reason?
https://beingkevin.com/2026/07/30/daily-writing-prompt-30-jul-do-you-think-everything-happens-for-a-reason/

The second was:

What’s a skill you consider basic that most people don’t actually know how to do?
https://beingkevin.com/2026/08/01/daily-writing-prompt-1-aug-whats-a-skill-you-consider-basic-that-most-people-dont-actually-know-how-to-do/

These two questions sparked a series of philosophical discussions about free will, predestination, and how we make decisions. This article is Part 1 of a three-part series exploring those ideas.

As I thought about those responses, I began wondering whether we always follow our beliefs to their logical conclusions. That question led me to think about predestination and whether we fully consider what that belief implies.

I’ve written before that I don’t share that belief. It is the first link above.

My own view is that life is largely the result of cause and effect. Events happen because of the choices we make, the choices other people make, and countless random circumstances that intersect throughout our lives. I can allow for a deist perspective—that perhaps a creator set the universe in motion and allowed it to operate according to natural laws—but I struggle with the idea that every event has already been planned in advance.

One thing to note about predestination is that, even if it is true, we still have to take an active role in our lives. We can’t simply sit back and wait for life to unfold. We still make decisions, work, raise families, and participate in the world as if our choices matter.

I’m not questioning anyone’s faith. In fact, I wrote about my own views some time ago, and my purpose isn’t to persuade anyone to abandon theirs. Instead, I’m interested in exploring the implications of the idea itself.

Here’s the question I keep coming back to.

Imagine someone leaves work, is robbed on the street, and is murdered.

Most of us would immediately describe that act as evil. It is cruel, senseless, and unjust.

But if every event in life was predetermined—if that person’s destiny was fixed from the beginning—then that event had to happen exactly as it did.

If it had to happen, was the murderer acting freely?

If the victim had no possibility of avoiding it, was it truly preventable?

If we remove the possibility that either person could have acted differently, we also seem to remove the foundation for praise, blame, justice, punishment, and even forgiveness. Those ideas all assume that people could have chosen another path.

And if neither outcome could have been different, in what sense can we still call the act evil rather than simply inevitable?

That is the question I find difficult to reconcile with a deterministic view of the world.

Can someone be morally responsible for an action they were destined to commit?

Philosophers have debated this question for centuries and have proposed different ways to reconcile predestination and free will. I simply haven’t found a reconciliation that I find logically convincing.

From my perspective, I struggle to see a third possibility. Either predestination is false, or the creator who predetermined every event also predetermined every act of suffering and evil. I don’t know how to reconcile those conclusions.

After thinking through these questions, this is where I find myself.

I understand why many people believe there is a higher purpose behind life’s events, and I respect that perspective. I simply cannot reconcile that belief with the existence of free will. If a creator determined every event before it happened, then I struggle to understand how our choices can truly be our own. If, on the other hand, we genuinely possess free will, then it seems to me that our future cannot already be fixed.

I don’t pretend to have the final answer. I only know that, after following the idea to what I believe are its logical conclusions, I find it difficult to reconcile predestination, free will, and moral responsibility as existing together.

Coming Next in This Series

Part 2 – Are Our Choices Ever Truly Free?

If our choices are shaped by our upbringing, education, experiences, and culture, are we ever truly free to choose? In Part 2, I’ll explore whether free will is really as independent as we believe.