How Can Our Free Will And God's Plan Coexist?
We are often told not to worry; that God has a plan, and he works in mysterious ways. But we also have the gift of free will, which can sometimes be a difficult concept to reconcile with the other. How can our free choices and God’s plan coexist? How can he have a plan that accounts for billions of people’s individual choices?
I believe the question itself is faulty because I assumed that God’s plan must be unchanging. It is true that we have free will, and it is also true that God has destined our world for his own goodness.
“By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude (CCC 1731).”
God’s plan will be fulfilled when we conform our wills to his. But how does the world not spin out of control with the ever-increasing number of sins? St. Augustine tells us, “[God] would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself (CCC 311).”
Evidently, God must be constantly correcting our course. It seems that is his plan – to always push us toward himself. “We call ‘divine providence’ the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection (CCC 302).” Our free will and his plan coexist, for God acts through us and turns even our failings into good.
In our material-oriented world, we think of plans being rigid and definitive. Of course, we cannot assume God’s plan will fit our perception of a “plan.” We will only be able to truly understand God when we see him in Heaven, so we cannot expect his plans to be any different in nature.
We have the power to choose our own lives. If we were to choose to shun God, he would not force us to know or love him, but he will always encourage us to open our hearts to him. To our knowledge, his plan is not detailed or precise. It is simply to always turn us back to him with the hope that one day we will choose him.
