A Struggle of Wills

Life is a contest of wills - ours versus God's, but we know the weaker.

1 Corinthians 9:17 For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation (exemption) of the gospel (God's will to trust Jesus) is committed unto me.

The "will" is a human faculty in us and a divine one in God. Will is in contrast to fate. With the latter, humans accept the inevitable, and our attempts to control the outcome is in futility. With fate, there is a natural order of things, whose outcomes cannot be directed. Fate can either be divine order or chance. Divine will, is toward order, and fate disorder.  Divine will increases probability, and fate reduces it.

Let's take the case of fate: Let's assume that somehow against all planning and human interaction, a blind deaf person just appears in Los Angeles rush hour traffic; fate would be one of two outcomes: injury or safety. However, can fate really dictate that situation? Obviously, plans, events or persons controlled the experiment because a person can hardly be effected without cause(s).  This so-called "fateful" event was either the outcome of divine will or human will. Both causes are from an intelligence of some sort.

To remove any bias, I propose the reader derive any situation where it happened solely by fate. I'll help you be inventive: scientists propose that existence was created by fate. Inevitably the entire universe was an effect without a cause! In this way of thinking, there is no natural nor supernatural order but a high degree of unnatural disorder which self-ordered! Let me repeat that: Existence is a outcome of unnatural order whose outcome is order which occurred by self-ordering! Let the philosopher examine the ridiculousness of that hypothesis but that's what scientists propagate.

Humans don't have the capacity nor power to order the universe nor does any creature nor object. Hence, that leaves an ordering of only the supernatural. Some "existence" beyond "human will" ordered the universe. For the dimwitted or savant-idiots, "order" was not fate but by the will of a "being" whose intelligence and power were capable of ordering it. Hence, "Existence" had a Mind behind it who did His Will. I capitalize now, because this Existence claimed the Creation!

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Actually Moses wrote that but God inspired and directed Moses to write it. As such, Moses wrote about God's will, and did God's will in writing this. Fate didn't direct Moses to write that. He took God's will and followed the supernatural order. Moses could have used his own will, and not write that. Surely Moses believed that God Is the Creator or he would not have written it! Fate would suggest that one day Moses mind created that thought and wrote it down without a reason. However, it is more plausible that "somebody" caused Moses to have that thought. Scripture proclaims that God did!

God created because He willed it.  I may will that I live to be two-hundred. The difference between my will and God's will is Power. Actually my will and the will of everyone, whether they know it or not, is to live forever, of course with a pleasant existence. For Christians, being "born-again" is the recognition that what we will cannot come about because humans have not the power to provide the desired outcome. It occurs to us, as we accept truth, that since we cannot obtain eternal life on our own, that we depend on Someone with Power who is Able. That "Existence", we refer to as "God". We use a capital "G" to signify the Ability of that Existence.

Thus, eternal life must be God's will to have that outcome. God expressed His will very clearly:

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

God's will is that mankind - "whosoever", live forever and always be! Guess what? The irony is that our will matches God's will in this case. It is dependent on our willingness to accept the gift of faith and willingly do something with it. God desires that for the outcome to be favorable to both us and Him! When it occurs to men that our will is the same as God's will, then men have seen the light which God shines. Those dimwitted before, finally see the Light which scripture tells us is the truth of God. What is that truth? Since only He could order existence in the first place, only He can order infinite Existence. Fate has no power to make cause at all, let alone cause it forever! Self-indulgent people have a false reality: that Chance controls everything. Since there is no supernatural order, not even natural order effects or affects humankind. Everything is by Chance but only humans can influence the outcome.

Some believe that because fate is the existence, or actually that there is no existence, that man is the master of our own destiny. Purists believe that even our feeble attempts to control our own destiny is in futility. Indeed, in the eternal scheme of things, God agrees with that idea! Humans are powerless and our will is insufficient! Wise men not only hope that there is a God who wills them to live forever, but believe there must be to the extent that we place our confidence in God's will and power. Since fate promises nothing and we are powerless, then our only hope is in an Existence. Nobody or nothing claims to be the Existence save One:

Exodus 3:13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? 14 And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you. 15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever...

The One without a name merely says, "I Exist" and "this is my name for ever". God (not his name but how we describe His will and power),  just Is and Always Will Be. God Is "Existence"! Everything else is the effect. God is the Cause! Fate had no power to create order from nothing, and to keep order in chaos. Everything happens because God wills it!

Looking back at the start of this commentary with the featured scripture, Paul says, "For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward." Paul is saying that his outcome is eternal life if his own will is doing God's will. Therefore, my contention is that eternal life is granted when believers are willing to submit their own will in deference to God's will! Sin is failing to match our will to God's. Since God is graceful, it is not the outcome that impresses Him. Doing "good" is not His will but the willingness to please God is! Again, for the dimwitted, God doesn't look at our failures but our willingness to sacrifice our own will for His will.

Romans 12:1 says, "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service".  Paul is telling Christians here to present their will to God as a sacrifice. Not our will but God's will be done (Luke 11:2). Hence, Jesus prayed that God's will be done and ours submitted to Him. Salvation is all about the battle of wills. You see, Jesus didn't give Satan any credit. He is the author of the "law of sin" but we are free agents to follow Satan's laws or God's will. We either will to obey the will of Satan or the will of God. Satan is satisfied with man using his own will. However, God is not!