Fate vs. Chance. These are two polar philosophical views of the world and life that are at constant war. Did I by chance meet the woman who was to be my wife? Did she just happen to end up in my sister dorm in college? Or was it fate? Were we star crossed lovers before worlds were formed? For that matter were worlds formed? Was our world formed? Are we created and here with a plan and a purpose? Are we nothing more than the result of cosmic explosions and galactic dust collisions? Is it destiny that I decided to sit in the seat I’m in now at the Starbucks I often frequent? Is it fate or chance that you have followed a link from a social media post to this blog and are now reading these words? What role does God play in all of this? Is it all part of a sovereign God’s plan? Does God’s sovereignty negate the idea of free-will? Is God so sovereign that even my own salvation is not a choice but something that was destined to take place? What does this say for truth or choice or love or hope? Is it all related or is it simply circumstancial red evidence twine strung between the pegs of dotted thoughts on the pegboard of philosophy and divinity?
Life brings with it many questions. We often explain these questions in one of two ways. We claim science or God. Deity or Dust. We place these things at odds. We draw lines and choose sides. What if it’s both. What if we are divine dust? Author R.C. Sproul attempts to examine our attempts and answering these questions through the lens of science and faith in a reissue of his 1995 book NOT A CHANCE.
NOT A CHANCE examines the work of many modern scientific geniuses and theologians under the premise of semantics and linguistics to nail down what we mean by “chance”. Does the idea of chance leave us with a lack of absolutes? Does chance mean that there can be no truth? Does an absence of truth mean there is no God? Sproul takes his readers through an academically rigorous journey into the exploration of these questions and many more. Truthfully, I don’t know that I agree with all of Sproul’s conclusions concerning the implications of God’s sovereignty and it’s limitations on our free-will, but I have enjoyed wrestling through the topics with him.
