Expert: Richard Aberdeen - 8/10/2011

Question
is there no such thing as an accident in love

Answer
According to the Bible God is love.  Also according to the Bible, God is in control of our ultimate fate.  However, it is unlikely in my opinion, that God will violate our own free will.  Thus, again in my opinion, God works around whatever choices human beings make, towards his ultimate purposes.  I believe God allows various events and people to influence us in our lives in order to draw us towards depending on him and to make us what we ultimately can be.  God can do that without violating our own free will, because God has the "big picture".  We only have a small limited view, for now we see "in part".

I can add to this, those who vainly imagine they control their own destiny are only kidding themselves.  For example, someone currently attending high school can decide in their own mind that they want to attend Harvard University.  However, they can't do that unless Harvard grants them permission to attend, thus the choice is not just up to the student in high school.  Even if the student manages to gain admission into Harvard, they will be influenced by many teachers and students at Harvard who they did not choose to happen to be there and who they have no control over.  The student in high school might meet someone at Harvard and marry them, but they did not choose for that someone to also attend Harvard.  They might also develop a binge drinking habit or experiment with drugs because they are laying around in a frat house and become plagued by addiction; or, they might start eating poorly because their friends do and hurt their long term health significantly.  Or, they might get caught up in a student protest and end up with a criminal record, or, might fall victim to a rape or other assault.  They may also come under the influence of a certain professor, who causes them to change their goal in life and perhaps become a poor physician in Africa rather than a wealthy lawyer in America.

There are some things we can choose to do and not do and, many events and many people influence us every day over which we have little or no control.  Even if we choose our own place of employment, we have no control over who else works there or how they will ultimately influence us.  I have worked in many blue collar professions and there is no doubt at all that I have been influenced by a great many other blue collar workers, who I did not initially choose to associate with but rather, who just happened to be working in the same factory, warehouse or on the same construction crew I was on.  Thus, nobody is in control of their own destiny and it is foolish to vainly imagine that we are.