True or False: “Everything Happens for a Reason”

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  • A future former girlfriend (not you) likes to say that. I guess it might be true at some micro level, but still I don’t believe it is true. If everything “happens for a reason” wouldn’t that negate the idea of free will? What if everything happens at the intersection of random events colliding? Can someone help me explain to my friend that all things do not “happen for a reason?” Thanking (most of) you in advance for your thoughtful responses. With love, ST

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14 thoughts on “True or False: “Everything Happens for a Reason””

  1. I agree with you, but I have been guilty of saying “everything happens for a reason” too. After thinking about it, it occurs to me that, for me, it was bad phrasing of what I think is a good idea: we should try to learn from every experience. We should look for God’s hand in everything that happens. This does not mean that God makes everything happen: we have free will, but He is there for us always, and He can bring goodness and light out of even our worst mistakes and sins.

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  2. My favorite take on this platitude is:
    “Everything happens for a reason….that I make up!”

    It would be accurate to say, “Everything people do is done for a reason .” But When you’re talking about a non-human event, like a storm, a virus, of course it happened as a result of some previous event. There is some reason IN THE PAST why it happened. But what people mean by this platitude is that present random events happen in order to cause some FUTURE event. And that is nonsense.

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  3. What you’re saying ST is akin to “You make your own luck.” Yes, you can be in the right place at the right time but if you don’t know how to take advantage of the opportunity, you’ve squandered your ‘luck.’

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      3. Speaking of whom, isn’t professional basketball required by U.S. Constitutional set-asides to have a minimum of 2-3% Jewish players on their rosters? What’s up with the blatant antisemitism in professional sports? Come to think of it, random sampling suggests no more than 2% of Nevada’s licensed prostitutes are Jewry. There ought to be a law against it!

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      1. Dude, you’re the last person I want to irritate even if we do live thousands of miles apart. iWe has already warned me about you! 🙂

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  5. We’ve been around the horn on this one, haven’t we? For me, it’s an interaction between our free will, and seeking guidance from the Designer and Maker, so that we can become the persons He’s known before our formation in the womb. There is an end in mind, but the paths we take are many and varied. In fact, our freedom is so important to God that we are permitted to make choices that are not in our own – or another’s – best interest. We’re free to make mistakes, and, hopefully, learn from them.

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