The fate vs. freewill discussion always fascinated me, it was one of the few discussions I enjoyed in my high school English class, and I was quite curious how it applied to Biblical lore: Adam and Eve had a choice to disobey God – I always found that poorly planned on God’s part, but that is a post for a different day.

I was an inquisitive child. My father encouraged my questioning and actively encouraged me to read and question, particularly when it came to religious matters. I was given free reign to read whatever I could get my hands on, and took similar liberties with my parents collection of records.

For whatever reason my father had the 4-record set of Jesus Christ Superstar which I listened to (loudly) in the living room until my parents got me the two-CD set so I could listen to it in my room and not disrupt the entire house.

Being the Good Little Sunday School attendee that I was, I was reasonably versed in the Jesus story: the Old Testament tales that foretold of his coming, the virgin birth (which still makes me uncomfortable), his mission, healing, teaching and the last supper, betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection.

Questions in Sunday School where all the grades are in one big, echoing room, are dangerous things, particularly when I was the one asking them. So when a 1970s rock-opera made me question the official Jesus story my Sunday School teachers were less than thrilled.

What was this awful question I was asking? I thought it was simple:

Did Jesus have a choice?

My Sunday School teachers were not really prepared for this question, nor did they ever have an adequate answer. It brought up more questions:

• Is Jesus simply a very inspired man? Is Jesus actually God in human form?
• If Jesus did not have a choice, what does that say about God’s need for a human sacrifice, and God’s role as loving Mother/Father?
• If Jesus did not have a choice then what about us? Do we truly have free-will or is everything ore-ordained by some Divine plan?
• If this is all simply the “Adam dream” as Ms. Eddy refers to it, than what does it matter? Jesus was no more real than the table we were sitting around, and it is all an allegorical story.

The line of questioning about Man/God and fate vs. free will usually caused the Sunday School teachers to panic and have the Sunday School Superintendent come over to “talk” with me about the need to “stay on topic.” On topic meant whatever was in that week’s Bible Lesson, or worse, going over the 10 commandments again.

I was rather upset, in my secular English lit classes we could talk about Fate vs. Freewill in the context of literature, why was it frowned upon in my Sunday School class where we were supposed to be learning about the Nature of  and our relationship with the Omnipotent Mother/Father God?

Occasionally one would say something about the need to “fulfill the prophecy” or that JC needed to “die to prove that death was an illusion.” Prophecy fulfillment brings back the free-will/predetermined issues, and “death is an illusion” doesn’t really answer the question. I agree, nothing is lost when we die, our energy remains, albeit in a very disorganized form, but “death is an illusion” is side-stepping the question.

One Sunday School teacher finally asked me “does it matter [if Jesus had a choice]?”

If you’re using Jesus’ death and resurrection as one of the key features of a religion I think it makes a difference.

*The scene that made me question the most comes from the garden at Gethsemane where Jesus questions if he really has options, God says nothing, and Jesus resigns himself to his fate – lyrics in full under the cut

I Only Want To Say (gethsemane) :