Man as a History-Making Existence

We may can’t deny the fact especially when we were still young and maybe even until now, we rely on the so-called destiny of our lives. We came to a point that we thought that everything is dependent upon God’s will. That’s why if we failed, we started saying that it is Him who is the one who decided that it should really happened to us. That we thought there’s a reason why it happened. Or our decisions became dependent to Him making us fatalistic. It is like we believe everything which happens to us is inevitable because that is how destiny controlled our lives, that is how God wanted it to happen. 

Like for instance, in my situation as a student, whenever I get a failing grade in any of my subjects, I think that it’s God’s will and there’s something that He wanted me to do and that is something I can’t control anymore because it is His will. But we don’t know or not all of us are aware that being a human is also being a history-making existence. We are labeled to be history-making existence because we can create civilizations. We can create our own history. Human beings are temporal beings and at the same time we are free beings. Free beings in such a way that we all gained sovereignty. In other words, we ourselves control our own lives. It is us who can make our lives meaningful. What’s the use of the freedom given by God if He is the one who decides for us? 

Maybe we could say He guides for us but He never interrupts with our lives. He gave us full freedom, no more, no less. Thus, we have the task and responsibility to write our own stories in our lives. We are not destined nor living alongside with our fate. The world is a man’s work and fruit of his labor. However, there are instances that the freedom gained by people could also be controlled by other people. As we remember how Adolf Hitler killed millions of people specifically the Jews which became known as the genocide incident wherein the lives of these Jews were controlled by a dictator. A dictator who also made a history that is still remembered until now. 

Then there goes the “history repeats itself” statement being connected here which is at the same time, not a valid explanation to use whenever an inevitable incident occurred which also happened before. History will not repeat if people would not do it again also. History does not work on its own. It depends on us on how we create it. Thus, such holocaust will never happen again if we will not let it happen also.

Freedom has been one of the wonderful gifts given to us by the Divine Providence. And since it is a gift, human beings should also learn how to take good care of it and not to take it for granted or use it not in a good way.