Fate, Free Will, and Jason Bourne

Sunday night is often movie night among the patrons of Apartment 12208, so my roommate, Jon, and I headed to Movie Tavern to check out a flick that I’ve been excitedly looking forward to, The Adjustment Bureau. Let me lay some groundwork for this movie without giving away too much. Matt Damon plays David Norris, an up and coming politician who is making waves for being the youngest US Congressman. The story picks up with Norris running for US Senate in New York City. Norris has a history of being an unpredictable loose cannon, winning people over with his authenticity. Within the first 5 minutes of the movie, we learn that an old college prank comes back to haunt him and ruin his campaign. As he is practicing his recession speech, he meets the radiant Elise Sellas, played by Emily Blunt. They share a moment, and a kiss, and are separated with no way of keeping in touch with one another.

Weeks later, Norris runs into Sellas on a bus, of all places. What is perceived to be a chance encounter isn’t exactly so. In the back-story of this romance, we learn that Norris is being closely followed by a young man in a trendy fedora. Harry (Anthony Mackie) is introduced as Norris’s “case worker,” or angel, if you so prefer. Harry missed his cue to spill coffee on Norris’s shirt at a certain time to keep him from getting on the bus, and meeting Sellas, and falling in love, and on and on as the ripples continue. After a series of unfortunate events, Norris stumbles across Harry and his co-workers doing what they do: adjusting. Norris is confronted by one of Harry’s superiors, Richardson, played by the great John Slattery. Richardson then lays all of the cards on the table. He explains that the bureau is a group of case workers who work for “The Chairman” (assumedly God) and keep individuals on their specific path that was drawn up by the Chairman. Each individual has a specific fate, and if they veer too far off of the path that leads them to that particular fate, the bureau is there to funnel them into the choice that is necessary for them to make and keep them on track. For instance, if your internet goes out at your apartment forcing you to go down the street to a coffee shop, if your cell reception is low meaning you have to wait five extra minutes to make a phone call, or if you hit a pot hole causing your coffee to spill on your shirt, making you late to work, these are all effects of the bureau nudging us back on path. Richardson explained to Norris that it is important he keeps this information to himself, and that he stays away from Sellas as the ripples of that union could be disastrous.

As the story goes, Norris decides to rebel against the bureau, and somehow begins to succeed as he starts a relationship with Sellas. The bureau then decides to bring in their big guns, Thompson, played by Terence Stamp. Thompson is a veteran case worker not afraid to get his hands dirty. After an interesting cat and mouse game between Thompson and Norris, they meet face to face for the most intriguing conversation of the movie, and the motivation for this blog. Thompson explains to Norris why the human race is forced into fate and free will is not an option. He shows examples where the Chairman has removed fate from the face of the earth, only to intervene when he had enough of the Dark Ages. Centuries passed, and he pulled his hand away again, only to be greeted with World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and so on. Of course, this is all scripted dialogue, nothing factual, but interesting examples of the mess humans get themselves into when free will is prevalent. Thompson reiterated the points that Richardson made before him and made a very poignant statement, “You do not have free will, only the appearance of free will.”

The movie continues and that is as far as I will go with my little review. I will state that the ending was very disappointing. It was as if the producers got to the end of the movie and said, “Man, we really tried to wrestle a monster with this whole fate vs. free will thing. Now we actually have to choose. Ya know what, let’s just wrap it up with a big Hollywood bow and hope people don’t notice.” I will say this about the ending without giving anything away. Harry made one statement to close the movie that also caught my attention. He stated, “Free will is a gift you don’t get until you fight for it.”

The movie spurred on an interesting conversation between Jon and me. We started talking about fate, what role it plays in our lives, and exactly how much free will we actually have. Now, fate is called by a number of names: karma, predestination, destiny, but we’ll stick with fate for alliteration’s sake. Are our circumstances set by our own choices? Do we control our futures? Or is there a higher power that controls every detail? Are we pushed into certain choices that have predetermined outcomes? Do we have free will, or just the appearance of free will?

Let’s take a look at fate. Webster’s defines fate as “the will or principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do.” Basically, fate is inevitable. In the long run, the small decisions that we make have no long-term effect on our future. The future will shake out as it is supposed to shake out. This means that the career you have was not your choice. You were set on a path long ago and presented a number of options that possibly made you believe you were choosing your future, but in the end it’s where you would have ended up anyways. This means your wife or husband was meant for you and only you. Yes, when you were dating it looked like you had options, but you really didn’t. You didn’t choose your mate; your mate was chosen for you. Where you went to college, where you live, what kind of car you drive, all of these things have been locked in by Someone bigger than you. You may think they were your decisions, but the truth is, this was your path. Your future was not unwritten. As a matter of fact, your future was set in stone before you were ever born.

There are pros and cons to this, just like anything else. The great thing is that it is a wonderful reminder that we have a Creator. Our God was careful enough to think through our entire lives before we were even in existence. The entire chapter of Psalm 139 is great to read on this subject, but pieces of it go like this: “You discern my thoughts from afar…. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether…. You formed my inward parts, You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” This is such a loving passage about the care of the Lord over every part of our life. Jeremiah 29:11 states, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord…” There is comfort in knowing that a God who loves us so much governs over every aspect of our lives. After all, He is omnipresent and omniscient. How can we escape Him? However, on the same note, doesn’t this make our life a bit robotic? If our lives are set in stone, what is the point in even living them? What motivates us and spurs us on? If everything is supposed to happen according to plan, why try? Desires, goals and dreams all stem from wanting to make the best out of the freedom we’ve been given. Without freedom, we’re prisoners. Not only are we prisoners, but with the appearance of free will, we are treated as if we are children. Have you ever given a child an ultimatum that goes along the lines of, “You can choose to not eat your vegetables and go to bed early without any television, or you can eat them and we will have ice cream afterwards, the choice is yours”? Is that an honest choice? We know what the child is going to choose. We have limited his options in a way to present the option we want for him to choose. NOTE: I am NOT saying God is a controlling parent treating us like babies. My purpose in this post is to compare, contrast, and start conversation.

Now let’s take a look at free will. Free will is the idea that the world is ours for the taking. We are daily, weekly, monthly presented with a plethora of options in a number of settings. Every decision we make directly effects our future in a large or small way. Our career was our choice. Our mate was our choice. Our school, our house, our car, all our choices. We have the ability to play the hand we’re dealt, and we live with the consequences. Free will is a fairly easy concept to grasp, so we won’t beat it to death.

The great thing about free will is that it makes each of us unique and allows us to choose our lives. John 15:7 states, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” John 3:16 says, “Whosoever believes in Him…” It doesn’t say “Whoever God makes into a believer.” Free will shows that God is a God of love and trust, allowing us to live and loving us through our consequences, good or bad. Free will is an excellent representation of true love. If we are destined to love someone or something, how can it be called true love? We do not truly love something unless we choose to love it. God knows this and therefore instilled a sense of free will in us and the world. God did not create us to love him, because how can that be real love? God created us, gave us reason to love Him, loves us unconditionally, and allows us to love him back. Obviously, there are consequences to the decision, but that decision is ours to make. Of course, on the flip side, a life full of free will supports the idea of Deism. It would mean that we were created and left on earth to deal with anything and everything. God never intervenes and doesn’t care to. How is this true love?

The fact is that the debate between fate and free will can’t be decided in a 90 minute film, and it can’t be decided in a 2,000 word blog. The Bible supports the idea of both and at the same time seems to downplay the idea of both. This is a very large gray area of a book that is chalk-full of black and white. That’s why it is such an interesting topic. Sometimes as Christians we’re afraid to ask the difficult questions. What we don’t realize is that God longs for us to ask those questions. God is infinite, and our minds are finite, which is why He left such heavy topics for us to discuss as opposed to spelling it out for us. God wants us to dig, learn, debate, question, research, and find out more about Him. When we have healthy debates, we show Him that we are hungry to know more. I encourage you to take this topic to a friend, accountability partner, husband, wife, roommate, or whoever you might talk to, and see what they think about it. Remember, there is a healthy way to debate. Ask what the other person thinks, listen intently with an open mind, ask them questions about their ideas, and then share your opinion. BE READY! When you start digging and asking God for revelations, He WILL provide! God will bestow as much information into your finite mind as it can stand. So there it is, my big Hollywood bow on the subject of fate and free will. What are your thoughts?