Is our lot in life predetermined, as well as our ultimate destination in the afterlife (if you believe in one)? Or do we have control over what happens in our lives and where we ultimately end up when we die?

I have seen nothing in my life that leads me to belive in predestination. Heck, its a rather nasty idea, that your fate is woven and you cannot change it.

Off topic: The term "fate is woven" comes from the norse idea that there where persons who actually "wove" one's story before they where born.

The greeks had a simliar idea. The fates measured the thread of a mans life and all that would happen in it. Then they cut it, causing him to die. I forget their names but there were three of them, and even the Gods were bound by their dictates.

I believe in predestination in a sense, but I don't believe that it cancels out free will. I think the idea of the two being mutually exclusive relies on subjecting God to laws of causality to which he need to not abide. God is not bound by our concept of linear time.

2 Peter 3:8
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

With God, time as we know it does not exist. Every moment exists at the same time, while at the same time (yeah, poorly phrased, but you know what I mean), every moment is infinitely set apart from every other moment. In short, God is not bound by our concept of cause and effect. To say that God created humanity, whilst knowing what would happen is innacurate. God is omniscient, but the concept of cause and effect is not one that God necessarily subscribes to. Just because God created someone, it does necessarily follow that the actions of that person are not truly free -- to say otherwise would be to assume a cause and effect relationship.

But of course, as Peter so eloquently points out, although a thousand years is like a day with the Lord, the inverse is also true. So in another way God is responsible for all that happens. This is a difficult concept to put into words, but essentially, it allows for both predestination and free will. While on one hand, God set all things in motion and is responsible for all that happens, by the same token we are responsible for our own actions, and our deeds, both good and bad, are our own. This is a Biblical concept. It is quite evident in Exodus that there is no real difference from God hardening Pharaoh's heart, to Pharaoh hardening his own heart.

Exodus 7

3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.

Exodus 8

15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said.

Exodus 7:22 simply says:

But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh's heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said.

I contend that these three are really one and the same. Predestination and free will, I think, are merely two sides of the same coin.

Neither really. And at the same time... both, kinda. I mean I think it's absurd for me to think that God created me and meant for me to go to hell. Sounds like a pretty sucky God. And yet it also sounds weird that we have total control of where we go.

Yet, at times it does feel like our lot in life has been "chosen" for us--insofar as there's so much we can't control. And it also at times feels like we can strive for heaven, in the way that we love and act.

Good question.

I can understand the idea of presdesintation from a relgious viewpoint. Heres my interpeation of that:

God would have set up a Divine plan; which is his will for us, what he wants for us. Now, being a God that suppously endowed us with free will, and one that isn't an authoritrain fellow (anymore) I think that this God would "let us off the leash" and allow us to follow what we can in our free will. This being said, the God would set up things to aid us in what his will is.

Just an interpitation.

Typically if we're talking terminology, "free will" and "predestination" are generally mutually exclusive.

However, "God's plan" and "free will", as you have pointed out, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. "Predestination" is the term given to a particular interpretation of the phrase "God's plan" that precludes the possibility of free will.

Contrast this with "God's foreknowledge," which accounts for both the idea of "God's plan" and the idea of "free will." In other words, you have the free will to do what you want, but God already knows what you will choose and has taken account. Or that God transcends space and time and makes the discussion about "free will" and "God's plan" moot.

I like to think that what you do in life controls on where you go in the after life if there is one(still not quite sure).

I agree with you Psycholopher that so much of our life is undetermined by us. I didn't choose the family I was born into, I didn't choose to be incredibly sick and spend months in and out of hte hospital between the ages of 3-6, I didn't choose where I went to highschool etc.

But at the same time I do think that the decision we make affect our destiny. Looking back at where I am now I can see how if I had made some decisions differently (e.g. where I went to college, where I studied abroad, what to major in at college etc) I would have most likely ended up in a different place right now. I'd like to think then that we do have control over our destiny (free will) and ergo play a role in where we land up in the after life.

My reasoning behind this is God knows all the decisions that will be placed before us when we're born throughout our life, and knows the infinite ways they will affect us and the infinite possibilities that result from those decisions (in other words knows what we could have chosen and how that would end and what we will choose and how that will end) and knows which decisions would lead us to the greatest happiness. Yet because of free will allows us to choose to be unhappy or to settle for lesser happiness. I do feel though that God tries to affect things so that we end up on that path of greatest happiness.. I haven't fleshed things out much past that, but it's my current working theory.

I am completely against it. If it was true I would not have areason to live. I would not want to either.

When ever I hear Predestination I think of Calvinism and Arminianism.

Rightfully so. Calvin is often toted as the big advocate for predestination. For a nice treatment on Calvin's psychology and the sociological happenings at the time that might have contributed to the popularity of predestination, read the first four chapters of Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom."