Survival of the Survivors

[Skepti Que]

Not only fitness but luck must have something to do with it.
SQ

Eccl 9:11
11 I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise, nor wealth to the discerning, nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake them all.
NAS

[Dr. John Nay]

Luck - "a force that brings good fortune or adversity." (Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition)

I think it's important to note the context of Ecclesiastes 9:11. In Ecclesiastes 10:19 we read, "A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything." (NIV) Personally, I don't believe that "money is the answer for everything."

I believe that Ecclesiastes is the autobiography of King Solomon, much of which is written from a human perspective, although recorded accurately (inspired).

In Ecclesiastes 12:13 he says, "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandmants, for this is the whole duty of man."

King Solomon most certainly did NOT keep the commandments of the LORD throughout much of his life, e.g. "On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifrices to their gods." (1 Kings 11:7-8, NIV) We, as Christians believe that there are forces at work, i.e. those of God and those that are against Him; we are involved in spiritual warefare (Ephesians 6:12).

I propose that the Plan of Salvation (Ephesians 1:5) was predestined before the foundation of the world, but that our decisions within the Plan were not. In my opinion, the Plan was based (designed) upon the foundation of all decisions that would ever be made and that this is the key to predestination and our free-will as humans. God can, and does at times, intervene into the activities of both nations and individuals, but His intervention does not negate free-will.

Exodus 9:12 tells us that the LORD hardened the Pharoah's heart. I believe that the Pharoah DID have a choice. Needless to say, this is a hudge topic, so I'll close for now with (what I believe to be) a good illustration of how God "may" intervene into our activities:

If I were to take an egg and a potato and place them in boiling water, the egg would become hard and the potato soft (if the physics of our space-time-continuim remained constant and there was not intercession from God, Satan, or Second Causes). I could say that I hardened the egg and softened the potato. Both responded to the immediate enviornment in accordance with their composition. In the same way, God knows, as an absolute, how we will respond to circumstances. We, however, do not know as an absolute, nor do we have absolute control of the circumstances, i.e. God, Satan and Second Causes. Sooooooooooooooooooo, I do believe in "luck" , at least as my dictionary defines the term, but probably somewhat differently than most non-Christians.

As far as survival of the fittest, through Jesus we survive for eternity, in that we are eternal beings. Thanks to Adam and Eve, the body is decaying, but (I pray) the inner man is being renewed day by day and will eventually have a body that is not subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

By the way, survival of the fittest/natural selection (referring to physical survival) is one of the strongest arguments for the Creation Viewpoint. Mutations (proposed mechanism for macro-evolution) are 99.99% harmful and long before a lizard would have had a "good" wing, he would have had a "very bad" leg and probably would not have survived very well.