> There is a limit inherent in this thinking. A fatalist doesn't worry about *anything*, because everything is pre-determinted. A free-will'er, of which I assume you are one (being Christian) worries about things "in his control" because he has the ability to change or influence those things.

This is turning into one of those threads with lots of different interesting points, each of which can be drawn out into a full conversation. I've latched onto this point of interest about fatalism, free will and religious belief.

It seems to me as though a certain concept of "freedom" has reached near-idol status in popular American thought. Many people think of freedom as a simple absence of constraint on their actions, the lack of obligation of any kind. And people "hoard" this freedom in a way, guarding it like misers. One example, possibly, is the tendency of modern Americans to postpone marital commitment for long periods of time. It's easy to enjoy the benefits of a relationship without being married, and society no longer morally censures sex before marriage, so why not remain as free as possible to leave the relationship at any time?

I've found it valuable to think about the nature of freedom analogically, as a "perishable good." Freedom is given to us by God, to exercise our wills howsoever we choose. But it is given in order to be spent and not to be hoarded--that is, God gives us freedom intending that we will use it to commit to certain things. Making a decision to call a troubled friend and offer support, or to marry, is exercising freedom to commit to a thing, and after one commits, he no longer has the freedom that he spent to tie himself to that commitment. If we hoard our freedom in order to remain free from such commitments, however, the freedom that was once a good thing, spoils and becomes a corrupting influence on us. Thus freedom can be thought of as a "perishable good."

Freedom rightly used leads to activism, as Dave pointed out in his post. If you believe not only that you can, but that you morally should, act to change the world for the better, then you might consider what you can (reasonably) do about the Y2K problem.

Fatalism is also an interesting concept for me, especially because the line between fatalism and strong theism (such as Calvinism) is so fine. I believe that God guides His creation to its appointed end and superintends every brief moment of its history. But how, then, can a created person like myself be said to be truly "free"? Aren't my actions, and the exercise of my will, laid out beforehand, so that I'm not really free to do anything other than what has been preordained by God?

Naturally, I can't completely overcome all the paradoxes involved in this age-old problem. But there are some ways of thinking about it that are helpful for me, even though they don't escape the charges of paradox. Firstly, I think of my role as a created person as a "participant" in God's plan. The history of the world, and of me personally, may unfold according to God's design, but not without my own involvement. God invites me to participate in His unfolding of the story, and to exercise my will to do so.

Secondly, the leading intellectual alternative on the non-theistic side is also predetermination, albeit of a purely physical sort. Nothing has been proven, of course, and the universe may contain sufficient true randomization for us to hold that we aren't locked into a single course of events. But to me the evidence looks to be more on the side of fatalism by physics. If my life *must* be charted out for me in all its minutiae, I can at least be thankful that it is done by God, whom I trust to do what is righteous and good, rather than by states of matter and energy without intrinsic meaning.

Thirdly, I think that there's Scriptural room for saying that everything that happens has *not* been preordained by God, and that in fact a good deal that happens is not part of His will at all. Here our nature as free-willed beings starts to have serious consequences in the realm of evil, and the paradox becomes, "how do you avoid making evil a co-eternal choice together with God, which is dualism?" I can't solve this paradox either, but I think about it a lot and I have some ideas. This post is way too long already, though, so I'll cut it short here. I'm not really even sure why I've said all this, except just because I find the whole topic fascinating, and great material for the pondering of faith.

Iss