At times, I have been in a conversation with someone talking about death, and they say, “It was just his time to go.  When your time is up, it’s up,”  This is fatalism.  Fatalism is a doctrine that God has an exact set time for each person to die, and if they didn’t die the way they did, they still would have, somehow, died at that exact time.  It was all predetermined.

Now, it certainly is true that if God wants to bring someone down, He, through His providence can do so. Man can’t escape if such is what God wishes (cf. Ahab in 1 Kings 22:28-35 or look at Amos 5:19).

But, where is the passage that teaches that God has an exact time that He has preset for each one of us?  Where is that passage?

If fatalism is true, why is it that smokers die on average 5 – 8 years before non-smokers?  If fatalism is true, why is it that people who wear seatbelts are less likely to die in an automobile crash than those that don’t?  And I am certain that blind-folded jay-walkers trying to cross major streets and highways at night in dark clothing are more likely to die than others!! Consider the words of  Psalm 90:10, “The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they be eighty years…”  Watch the fact that the passage says strength, not God’s preset timetable!  Why is it that the Bible tells us how to avoid shortening our lives (Exodus 15:26; Proverbs 3:1-2; Proverbs 4:10; Proverbs 9:10-11; Proverbs 10:27; Proverbs 13:2-3; Proverbs 14:30; Proverbs 16:24; Proverbs 17:22; Proverbs 18:21; Proverbs 19:23; Ephesians 6:1-3;  1 Peter 4:15)?

God is all-knowing.  But, His all knowingness does not take away man’s ability to make wise and unwise choices, even righteous and sinful choices.  I find no passage in the Bible that teaches fatalism.  Let’s not be foolishly reckless. Let us be good stewards of our lives, and let us use such for His glory.