Are our lives determined by God from the time we are born?

Q. Do you think our lives were determined by God the day we were born? Is it a fixed destiny regardless of the twists and turns? Or is changes from time to time?

I think the discussion in this earlier post will largely address your concern:

Does the “sovereignty of God” mean that God is responsible for everything that happens?

That post responds to a question asked from the perspective of God, rather than from the perspective of human experience, as your question is but the answer is really the same either way. As I say in that post, God is not the only free moral agent in existence, but God is able to work through the free choices, both good and bad, of human moral agents to accomplish His purposes.

So I would say that our lives are not determined the day we are born; God has built a beautiful but terrible freedom into the moral universe that allows us to make choices by which we might bring joy and blessing to ourselves and to others, or by which we might cause great suffering. But God hasn’t left us alone to make those choices and to deal with their consequences; rather, God is an active free moral agent right in the mix, and with His infinite wisdom and power, He is constantly at work to help us make our choices work out, if we will live in fellowship with Him and depend on Him. So we should pray for wisdom and strive to develop godly character, so that we can cooperate with God in his plans for the created universe.

As I say at the end of that post, I picture God out there saying, “Let’s see what happens next. I’m sure I can do something with it.” We should respond, “Please do, and let me know how I can help!”

Author: Christopher R Smith

The Rev. Dr. Christopher R. Smith is an an ordained minister, a writer, and a biblical scholar. He was active in parish and student ministry for twenty-five years. He was a consulting editor to the International Bible Society (now Biblica) for The Books of the Bible, an edition of the New International Version (NIV) that presents the biblical books according to their natural literary outlines, without chapters and verses. His Understanding the Books of the Bible study guide series is keyed to this format. He was also a consultant to Tyndale House for the Immerse Bible, an edition of the New Living Translation (NLT) that similarly presents the Scriptures in their natural literary forms, without chapters and verses or section headings. He has a B.A. from Harvard in English and American Literature and Language, a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Gordon-Conwell, and a Ph.D. in the History of Christian Life and Thought, with a minor concentration in Bible, from Boston College, in the joint program with Andover Newton Theological School. View all posts by Christopher R Smith