Is Life Choice or Chance?

This is a question with theological and political importance. It lies at the heart of how we understand our lives and how we treat one another.

Although some see individual blessings as God-given rewards for good behavior, this never made sense to me. It doesn’t take long of observing people to see that good people are not always rewarded, and that seemingly undeserving people often get a good life.

Many religious traditions have grappled with the question of how much control we have over our lives. In my own tradition, there is a saying that “Universalists believe that God is too good to damn people, and the Unitarians believe that people are too good to be damned by God” (attributed to Thomas Starr King). This does capture a certain truth about the history of Unitarianism and Universalism. I am on the Universalist side of the distinction. I believe that the good things we get in life are sometimes a result of our own good choices, but more often a result of God giving us something good, even when we don’t deserve it.

So why doesn’t God’s kindness result in a fair distribution of good things? I have no idea. I have to think that God is always trying to work with us, to give us good things, but that there are forces of evil in the world, and that those can be very destructive.

So if we are in a sense co-partners with God, in working for good and against evil, then our choices matter. If you believe that God’s will is always crystal clear, and it is simply a matter of following orders, then there is really only one choice: obey or disobey. But to me it seems that God often speaks in hushed tones, and it may take some soul-searching and creativity to come up with an interpretation. We make choices about what seems like the most likely understanding of God and we try to apply that understanding to make a good choice in a given situation.

Still, our choices aren’t made in a vacuum, where’s God’s voice–or lack thereof at times!–is the only factor. We live in societies, and those societies shape our choices too.

Several months ago, I read a startling article titled ” ‘Marriage is for White People’ “ in the Washington Post. The basic premise of the article is that marriage rates are declining among African Americans due to a number of social factors. African Americans, the article argues, are choosing to marry less. But this choice is in part due to social factors. The author focuses especially on African American women who are choosing not to marry due to their increased economic opportunities, and also due to the limited availability of male partners who can contribute significantly to a marriage.

Marriage is a choice, but it is one that society makes more available and desirable for white people, and less available and less beneficial for some African Americans. That marriage is a socially-constructed choice has also been clearly illustrated by the debate over gay marriage. Currently, gay and lesbian Americans may want to “choose” marriage, but if they live outside of Massachusetts they cannot.

When we understand that our choices are to some extent restricted by the society in which we live, this understanding can impact our political attitudes. This is demonstrated well in a recent New Yorker article (ok, I spend a lot of time reading!) about Milton Bradley and how the Game of Life was invented. (Click here for an abstract of the article.)

In “The Meaning of Life: What Milton Bradley started,” Jill Lepore explains that Bradley came up with what was originally called “the Checkered Game of Life” in the mid-1800’s. The game was designed to inculcate virtue, as many games of that time were. And it was a game that presented life as a series of choices. Lepore writes, “the Checkered Game of Life requires you to make decisions, lots and lots of them. It’s best to have a plan.”

So Bradley started out presenting life as primarily a series of choices, with the “winners” choosing the good over the bad. But Lepore reflects that over time, Bradley’s understanding of life shifted:

“…he came to reject the notion that where you go in life is simply a matter of where you steer yourself. There were such things, in Bradley’s mind, as lousy starts, rotten luck, and bad cards. ‘The journey of life is governed by a combination of chance and judgment,’ he wrote in 1866. As he grew into his middle years, he apparently came to believe that some people had been given better chances than others.”

Bradley became an advocate for early education for children and “devoted himself to the nascent kindergarten movement.” Lepore notes that the kindergarten movement was in part an anti-poverty initiative, and equates it with Head Start today. As a supporter of the kindergarten movement, Bradley had to recognize the role of social context in shaping life choices and outcomes.

When we see life as a combination of chance as well as choice, we can be more compassionate towards people who have suffered life hardships. This compassion can fuel our support for social service programs, and for political reform. We benefit from taking a serious look at what we believe about choice and chance, and how those beliefs drive our attitudes and actions towards one another.