Oedipus the King and destinyD.T. Suzuki, a renowned expert on Zen Buddhism, called attention to the topic of free will in one of his lectures by stating that it was the battle of "God vs. Man, Man vs. God, God vs. Nature, Nature vs. God, Man vs. Nature , Nature versus Man1." These six battles constitute an ultimately larger battle: the battle between free will and determinism. Free will is the ability of a human being to make decisions about what life they would like to lead and to have the freedom to live within their means and therefore to choose their own destiny; Determinism is the circumstance in which a superior being orders a man's life from the day he is born until the day he dies. Free will is itself a far-reaching ideal that exemplifies the essence of what humanity could be when determining its own destiny. But with determinism, a man has a predetermined destiny and fate that cannot possibly be altered by the man himself. Yet, it has been man's desire to avoid the dangers that his destiny reserves and therefore he incessantly tries to thwart fate and divine will. Within the principle of determinism, this open contest to the divine mandate is blasphemous and considered sin. This ideal itself, and the whole concept of determinism, is quite common in works of Greek and classical literature. A manifest example of this was the infamous Oedipus of the Theban plays, a man who attempted to defy fate and thus sinned. The logic of Oedipus' transgression is actually quite obvious, and Oedipus' father, King Laius, also has a similar methodology and transgression. Both had unfortunate fates: Laius was destined to be killed by his own son, and Oedipus was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. This was the ominous decree of the divinatory Oracle of Delphi. King Laius feared the Oracle's proclamation and had his son, the only Oedipus, abandoned on a mountain with iron spikes like nails so that he would remain there to die. Yet, his attempt to thwart destiny was a failure, for a kind shepherd