Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

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THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
"Yes, but those incidents you, in your spirit-state, foresaw when you made your choice. But,
nevertheless, you must not suppose that everything which happens to you was 'written,' as
people express it. An event is often the consequence of something you have done by an act of
your free-will, so that, had you not done that thing, the event would not have taken place. If
you burn your finger, it i~ not because such an incident was preordained, for it is a trifling
inconvenience resulting from your own carelessness, and a consequence of the laws of matter.
It is only the great sorrows, the events of serious importance and capable of influencing your
moral state, that are foreordained by God, because they will be useful to your purification and
instruction."
860. Can a man, by his will and his efforts, prevent events that were to have occurred from
taking place, and vice-versa?
"He can do so if this seeming deviation is compatible with the life he has chosen. And, in
order to do good, which should be, and is, the sole end of life, he may prevent evil, especially
that which might contribute to a still greater evil."
861. Did the man who commits a murder know, in choosing his existence, that he would
become a murderer?
"No; he knew that, by choosing a life of struggle, he incurred the risk of killing one of his
fellow-creatures; but he did not know whether he would, or would not, do so; for there is,
almost always, deliberation in the murderer's mind before committing the crime, and he who
deliberates is, evidently, free to do or not to do. If a spirit knew beforehand that he would
commit a murder, it would imply that he was predestined to commit that crime. No one is
ever predestined to commit a crime; and every crime, like every other action, is always the
result of determination and free-will.
"You are all too apt to confound two things essentially distinct the events of material life, and
the acts of moral life. If there is, sometimes, a sort of fatality, it is only in those events of your
material life of which the cause is beyond your action, and independent of your will. A 5 to
the acts of the moral life, they always emanate from the man himself, who, consequently, has
always the freedom of choice; in those acts, therefore, there is never fatality."