Prometheus Unbound

It's interesting what studying a play about a damned god will do for your own theology. I'm stuck taking one last class, one little buggar of a class that is keeping that slip of paper that says I made it through university away from me. The class is called “World Classics in Translation.” Two guesses what it's about. I really, really, don't like ancient literature. Hi, my name is Elle, and I hate Greek dramatics and Shakespeare. But that's a whole 'nother ballgame.

Prometheus has a story most know, and if they don't, stop reading and go look it up in your Greek mythology section at the library. He helps mortals, gets damned by Zeus, winds up chained to a rock with his liver being eaten daily by an eagle. Yada yada yada. Not my division. My part comes in here: fate and fortune play a huge role in this story and there's an underlying question of predestination versus blind wanderings. I've thought for years it was both and as I was thinking it out and rationalizing it in my brain, it's both.

Think on it this way. You've come to the cliché hall with two doors. Between these two doors sits... we'll go with a little old man, just for images sake. Little old guy sits there and watches you debate which door to chose. He starts chatting you up, but not asking questions like “Where are you from?” but more along the lines of “How was last night's dinner of tacos, made by your mom, which you ate at 6:25 pm?” You pay attention at that statement, and as you speak with him, or more, as you listen to him, you realize he knows everything about you. EVERYTHING. All the details you'd forgotten, all the ones you'd hoped would stay hidden, all the ones your family and friends remembered. Everything. He knows your hopes, dreams, fears, quirks, which shoulder blade is itching but your too mesmerized to scratch. So you ask him which door to go through. He tells you something of what each door holds, good and bad, and the final destination. It's a little far fetched for you to believe, and you start thinking one door looks better than another, for whatever reason you decide. His facial expression never changes, but in one of those weird “you know he knows that you know that he knows...” circles, it's clear that he knows what door you'll be picking. And he's done nothing to influence that. Everything he told you about the doors was unbiased. So you pick a door, and he's on the other side, waiting.

That's predestination and blind wanderings. We have no idea, and we still have the free will to choose. He just knows ahead of time the choice we're going to make.

And that's my little nugget of musings while I sit, listening to Sherlock Holmes music and attempting to pay attention to a Greek play I really don't care for at all. God works in random ways, doesn't he?

Now then, was this post predestination, or of my own free will?